“I wanted to kiss you, that’s all,” he said, awkwardly. They were both silent for a moment, then she spoke, tremblingly: “You al’ays was womanish an’ tender-like; it don’t do a body any harm; none o’ the rest ain’t that way. But, my stars! I cayn’t tell a bit how you look in this pitch dark. Mary! oh, Mary!” Laramore released his mother’s hand, and sat up erect as the girl came to the door. “What you want, maw?” “I cayn’t see my hand’fore me; I wish you’d fetch a light heer. You ‘ll find a piece o’ candle in the clock; I hid it there to keep Jake from usin’ it in his lantern.” The girl lit the bit of tallow-dip, and fastened it in the neck of a bottle. She brought it in, stood it on a box filled with cotton-seed and ears of corn, and shambled out. Laramore’s heart sank as he looked around him. The room was nothing but a lean-to shed walled with upright slabs and floored with puncheons. The bedstead was a crude wooden frame supported by perpendicular saplings fastened to floor and rafters. The cracks in the wall were filled with mud, rags, and newspapers. Bunches of dried herbs hung above his head, and piles of old clothing and agricultural implements lay about indiscriminately. Disturbed by the light, a hen flew from her nest behind a dismantled loom, and with a loud cackling went out at the door. The old woman gazed at him eagerly. “You hain’t altered so overly much,” she observed, “‘cept yore skin looks mighty white, and yore hands feel soft.” Then she lowered her voice into a whisper, and glanced furtively toward the door. “You favor yore father--I don’t mean Sam, but Mr. Laramore. Yore as like as two peas. He helt his head that away, an’ had yore way o’ bein’ gentle with womenfolks. You’ve got his high temper, too. La, me! that last night you was at home, an’ Sam cussed you, an’ kicked yore books into the fire, I didn’t sleep a wink. I thought you’d gone off to borrow a gun. It was almost a relief to know you’d left, kase I seed you an’ Sam couldn’t git along. Yore father was a different sort of a man, Luke; he loved books an’ study, like you. He had good blood in ‘im; his father was a teacher an’ a circuit-rider. I don’t know why I married Sam, ’less it was ’kase I was young an’ helpless, an’ you was a baby.” There was a low whimper in her voice, and the lines about her mouth tightened. Lara-more’s breast heaved, and he suddenly put out his hand and began to stroke her thin, gray hair. A strange, restful feeling stole over him. The spell was on her, too; she closed her eyes, and a blissful smile lighted her wan face. Then her lips began to quiver, and she turned her face from him. “I’m er simpleton,” she sobbed, “but I cayn’t he’p it. Nobody hain’t petted me nur tuk on over me a bit sence yore paw died. I never treated you right, nuther, Luke; I ort never to ‘a’ let Sam run over you like he did.” “Never mind that,” Laramore replied, tenderly; “but you must not lie here in this dingy hole; you need medicine and good food.”