“I never doubted it, Nell,” Mother Tubbs hastened to say. “Nobody could doubt it that knowed you as well as I do.” She let her gaze wander over the squalid back yards of the row of shacks of which the Tubbs’ domicile was no better than its neighbors. “They don’t know you like I do, Nell. You’ve lived with me for three years—all the time you was growing into a woman, as ye might say. You hafter do what you do, and I don’t ’low when we are forced into a job, no matter what it is, that it’s counted against us as a sin.” Nell flashed the placid old woman another glance. There was something hidden behind that look—of late there was something secretive in all Nell Blossom said or did. Did Mother Tubbs understand that this was so? Was she, in her rude but kindly way, offering a sympathy that she feared to put into audible speech for fear of offending the proud girl? The latter suddenly laughed, but it was not the songbird’s note her voice expressed. There was something harsh—something scornful—in it. “I reckon I could get away with murder, and you’d say I was all right, Mother Tubbs,” she declared. “Well, mebbe,” the old woman admitted, her eyes twinkling. “Suppose—” said Nell slowly, her face turned away again, “suppose a party was the cause of another’s death—even if he deserved it—but didn’t mean just that—suppose, anyway, what you did caused a man’s death, for whatever reason, although unintended? Would it be a sin, Mother Tubbs?” She might have been reflecting upon a quite casual supposition for all her tone and manner betrayed. Just how wise Mother Tubbs was—just how far-seeing—no human soul could know. The old woman had seen much and learned much during her long journey through a very rough and wicked world. “I tell you, Nell,” Mother Tubbs observed, “it’s all according to what’s in our hearts, I reckon. If what we done caused a party to die, and we had death in our heart when we done the thing that killed him, I reckon it would be a sin. No getting around that. For we can’t take God’s duties into our hands and punish even the wickedest man with death—like we’d crunch a black beetle under our bootsole. ‘Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’” She repeated the phrase with reverence. “No, sin is sin. And because a party deserves to be killed, in our opinion, don’t excuse our killing him.” Nell was quite still for a minute. Then she shrugged her shoulders. “Humph!” she said briskly. “I don’t think much of your religion, Mother Tubbs. No, I don’t.” Mother Tubbs began to croon: It’s the old-style religion, The old-style religion, The old-style religion, That gets you on your way. ’Twas good enough for Moses, Good enough for Moses— The old-style religion, That gets you on your way. “It ain’t no new-fangled religion, Nell. But it’s comforting——”