If they had seen him as he drew up to the cradle's side, they would have discovered that they were confronting a side of the man of which they knew nothing. It was the man whose youth had been sore-hearted and desolate, while he had been too humble to realise that it was so, and with reason. If he had known lonely hours in the past eight years, only the four walls of the little back room had seen them. He had always enacted his _role_ well outside; but it was only natural that the three silent rooms must have seemed too empty now and again. As he bent over the cradle, he remembered such times, and somehow felt as if they were altogether things of the past and not to trouble him again. "She'll be life in the place," he said. "When she sleeps less and is old enough to make more noise, it will be quite cheerful." He spoke with the self-congratulating innocence of inexperience. A speculative smile settled upon his countenance. "When she begins to crawl around and--and needs looking after, it will be lively enough," he reflected. "She'll keep us busy, I daresay." It was a circumstance perhaps worthy of mention that he never spoke of the little creature as "it." "She'll need a good deal of looking after," he went on. "It won't do to let her tumble around and take care of herself, as a boy might. We must be tender of her." He bent forward and drew the cover cautiously over the red flannel sleeve. "They think it a good joke, those fellows," he said; "but it isn't a joke with us, is it, young woman? We've a pretty big job to engineer between us, but I daresay we shall come out all right. We shall be good friends in the end, and that's a pretty nice thing for a lonely fellow to look forward to." Then he arose stealthily and returned to the kitchen. "I want you to tell me," he said to Mornin, "what she needs. I suppose she needs something or other." "She needs mos' ev'rything, Mars Tom," was the answer; "seems like she hain't bin pervided fer 't all, no more 'n ef she was a-gwine ter be a youn' tukky dat de Lord hisself hed fitted out at de start." "Well," said Tom, "I'll go to Barnesville to-morrow and talk to Judge Rutherford's wife about it. She'll know what she ought to have." And, after a few moments given to apparently agreeable reflection, he went back to the room he had left. He had barely seated himself, however, when he was disturbed by a low-sounding tap on the side door, which stood so far open as to allow of any stray evening breeze entering without reaching the corner of the chimney. "Come in!" said Tom, not in a friendly roar, as usual, but in a discreetly guarded voice. The door was pushed gently open and the visitor stood revealed, blinking with an impartial air at the light within. "Don't push it wide open," said Tom; "come in if you are going to, and leave it as it was."