"No. It sorter 'pears like she's got tangled up in de underbresh way over yander on de uder side de hill, but termor' mornin' de sun gwine git up early, an' fling er bushel o' gold right inter dis yere room." "Daddy?" "Yas, honey." "You won't feel too bad ef I tell you suthin', will you?" "No, darlin'." "Daddy?" "Yes." "I'se dyin'." "Oh, doan say dat." He took her hands. "My God, genermen," he exclaimed, "she is cold. Oh, fur God's sake, kain't you he'p me? John, kain't--Oh, Hebenly Father----" "Daddy?" "Yas, angel." "Didn' you tell me erbout de good man dat died? Daddy, I--oh, I'se so happy--I----" "My God, she's gone!" exclaimed the old negro; "gone, gone. Oh, God, have mercy on my po' ole heart. Genermen, leave me yere er little while." Potter and John went out into the night. The thousand stars were still winking at each other. Without speaking the two friends turned down toward the river. "What noise is that?" Potter asked suddenly stopping. It was the wild wailing of Alf's fiddle. The old man was pouring out his grief. CHAPTER VI. Three years passed. No change had come over the old house where Potter, John, and Alf lived, but the farm was no longer a place half covered with bushes and briers. It was a long time after Jule's death before old Alf regained his wonted cheerfulness; and one night when she had, for more than two years, been in her grave, old Alf got out of bed, and began to walk up and down the room. Potter, who heard him, asked if he was ill. "Oh, no, sah," he replied. "I am jes' walkin' wid de speret o' my chile." To John there had come a great change. He had studied with unwavering determination, and had during two winters attended school at Sunset. From a charge, he had become a companion to Potter, who, during more than one conversation with Mrs. Forest and Eva, had said: "That boy has a wonderfully strong and original mind. His teacher declares that he never saw his equal. The mark he is going to make will be deeper than any furrow he has ever plowed." Potter and John had spent many pleasant hours at the Forest house. John had read all of Eva's books. He had not stopped at this; he had bought a number of books which he found in a store at Sunset--old books, which were thought by the storekeeper to be hopelessly out of date. He had laughed when John marched proudly away with a sack full of treasures. "That feller will never make a livin'," said the storekeeper. "Why, he give me $5 for a lot of old rubbish that I've been tumblin' about the store for years." John also laughed, but with quiet joy, for in the sack there were "Burns' Poems," the "Vicar of Wakefield," "Paul and Virginia," "Plutarch's Lives," and "Macaulay's Essays." One afternoon, John and Eva were strolling along a flower-fringed road near Mrs. Forest's house, when the girl remarked: "It is not strange to me that you are so different intellectually now from your former self. When I first saw you I knew that this time would come."