Had Martha Matilda been older, she would have tried to detain the one she had wounded. For he was wounded, just as are we all when suddenly there comes to us knowledge of long-continued effort being unappreciated. What was the use of all this struggling, beginning with the day and closing only when it was ended! He pulled an oat straw from a stack near, and then leaned on the bars of the cow-yard. Far beyond him were the snow-caps, now pink with the setting sun--the glow which the one gone from him had so loved to catch. His throat ached with suppressed emotion. He had striven so to stand true, to make the life of the child she had left easier than hers had been, just as he had promised! The cows crowded up restlessly against the bars. It was milking time. Mechanically he returned to the kitchen, brought back with him the pails, placed a stool and sent the tinkling streams against the shiny pail. Pail after pail was filled and set aside, then with a gentle pat for the last meek-eyed Jersey, he brought the milk back to the house, strained it carefully, filled a saucer for the cat at his feet, rinsed the pails, and after the cows had been cared for for the night, went back and hung his hat on its accustomed nail. He crossed to the window where Martha sat stiff and uncomfortable in the big rocking-chair. Sitting down in front of her, he tilted his chair forward and, lifting her hands, stroked them gently. "I have been thinking it all out down by the cows. It ain't right." He did not look at the face of the little girl, only at the hands he was stroking. "It wasn't because I wanted to break my promise to your ma--it wasn't a bit of that. You see the road was too hard for your ma; it is always go down or go up here in the mountains, and then it was always a little more money needed than we had. And when you came she couldn't bear to have the strain touch you, and almost the last thing she said was, 'You'll make it easier for her, she's such a little tot.' It wasn't because I meant to wriggle out of my promise that made me pretend not to see when your shoes gave out and your dresses got old and things in the house didn't run straight; it wasn't that." There was a great sob in the voice now, and Martha, hearing it, looked up to find her father's rugged face wet with tears. "Oh, pa, don't!" and the child's arm reached around her father's neck and she put her face close against his cheek. But the man shook himself partially free, as he brushed the tears from his face.