Tess closed the door of her shanty, looked about to see if anyone were watching her movements, then she, too, broke into the high weeds that surrounded the running brook under the mud cellar. Her little ruse in giving the child to its mother delighted her. She would find Teola, and bring her and the babe back to the shanty. Softly she parted the branches that hid the spot where she had first seen the Dominie's daughter. Through the maze of brambles she saw the girl, with the child clasped closely in her arms. The cloth in which Tess had wrapped it had fallen from the little shoulders, leaving them white, save for the blood-red mark of fire. Teola lifted the infant, and kissed it passionately, bending her head over it, praying. Tess could not enter upon such a holy scene. She sank down upon the turf. The basket yawned upon a bed of moss, its flannel rags hanging over the edge. Teola was making the babe ready to return to its bed, when Tess slipped under the branches of the short sumac trees, and entered the clearing. "Come back to the shanty," she said. "Ye be here too long." "I can't. I must go home, Tessibel.... I could hardly get away as it was. Oh, Tess, isn't he beautiful?... Don't you think the mark will soon go away? What makes him open his mouth so much? Possibly the sugar rag is too large." "Nope, 'tain't that. He be tired, and that air what makes him gape like that. Wait until he gets some bigness. He air little yet." "I haven't asked you, Tess," and Teola turned troubled eyes upon the squatter, "I haven't been able to ask you how you feed him. And where do you get the milk?... Oh, if I only had some money! When mother is home, I do get a little. But Rebecca won't give me a cent. Tessibel, where do you get the milk?" The babe was still clasped in her arms. "I crib it from the cows at Kennedy's. They all has too much for their calves, anyhow." "You mean you steal it, Tess?" asked Teola fearfully. "Oh, Tessibel! Oh! Oh, Tess, Tess, how good you are!" "I ain't good," Tess retorted. "It ain't good to steal, air it? And squatters ain't never good, they ain't. But the brat's got to eat, ain't he? If I ain't got no milk, then I has to crib it. See?" Bitter tears were falling upon the head of little Dan. They were the mother's first tears since that day when Tess had led her up the hill to the summer cottage. "But Kennedy will shut his cows up soon," announced the squatter. "Then I don't know what to do. The brat air too little to eat fish, he air." Suddenly Teola conceived an idea. "If I should put out a little milk behind the house, in a pail, could you come after it, Tessibel?" "Yep," replied Tess eagerly. "I could crib it from your yard, if ye'll let me."