Miss Ada Tenafee stared at her young kinswoman. The girl had halted and was gazing back. “Why--Manders, Luke Manders. He----” “Luke Manders!” Nancy repeated in her languid, sweet voice. “Isn’t that quaint, Cousin Ada? It sounds like a story, doesn’t it?” “Well, possibly it does,” Miss Ada grudged. “It has not occurred to me, however. The doctor admitted this young savage to his household as an equal--he idealized him in the most absurd way, and prophesied the most impossibly brilliant future for him--but now that Glen is alone, I shall try, tactfully, of course, because the child is loyal to her father and his ideas to the point of fanaticism, to give her a better sense of values. And _your_--graciousness to her to-day, Nancy, honey, will mean more than you can possibly----” Nancy Carey was looking at that moment even more like a maiden in a ballad than usual; there was a melting sweetness in her hazel gaze and with a distinct sense of shock the shabby teacher heard her say, with soft fervor--“Cousin Ada, I think he’s the handsomest thing I ever saw in my _life_....” CHAPTER VI _Mr. ’Gene Carey finds a right-hand man for the Altonia, and Glen Darrow joins the noble army of labor._ IF Dr. Darrow, in the celestial realms of whose actuality he had expressed a deathbed doubt, was cognizant of terrestrial affairs he must have grinned triumphantly and complacently over Luke Mander’s swift fulfillment of his prophesies. His progress was little short of being marvelous. He had galloped through business college at a speed which broke all their comfortable records, and his rapid rise at the mill was a never-ending wonder to his fellow workers. He was silent, tireless; he was the first one at work in the morning and the last one to leave at night; work was an obsession with him, a rapture and a dear delight. “By gad,” ejaculated Mr. ’Gene Carey to his superintendent, “you know that boy _likes_ to _work_! He does, by the eternal! And you listen to me, Ben, I want him pushed on, fast as he can go!” The middle-aged and work-weary superintendent was nothing loath. The genial and gentle old owner knew very little more about the actual working of his mill than his daughter did, far away in her Northern finishing school, and Ben Birdsall, a dour and conscientious employee, carried all the load. He was an industrious, slow-minded, well-meaning creature, and after the death of the old superintendent and his own promotion from foreman he had felt decidedly out of his depths. “I haven’t got the head fo’ it, suh, an’ that’s the Lawd’s truth,” he said earnestly, protesting his advancement. “I’m a willing worker, suh, yo’ know that; I’m free to admit it fo’ myself, but I’m no office man, and that gal that’s markin’ up our books, suh, she’s a little worse’n what I am!”