"Oh, what a beast I was to hurt her like that," she murmured, forgetting the harsh, unfeeling words that had aroused her ire, thinking only of the wonder and pain that had lurked in her mother's eyes,--the wonder and pain of a whipped dog. "The only person in all the world who has ever really loved me,--poor, poor old mother." She stared through her tears at the flames, a little pucker of uncertainty clouding her brow. "I am sure Barry never, never can love me as she does, or be as kind and good to me," she mused. "I wonder--I wonder if what she says is true about men. I wish he had not gone to drinking to-day. But I suppose the poor boy really couldn't help it. He hates so to be disappointed." Later on, at supper, she abruptly asked: "Mother, how old is Kenneth?" They had spoken not more than a dozen words to each other since sitting down to table, which was set, as usual, in the kitchen. Both were thoughtful;--one of them was contrite. Rachel Gwyn, started out of a profound reverie, gave her daughter a sharp, inquiring look before answering. "I do not know. Twenty-five or six, I suppose." "Did you know his mother?" "Yes," after a perceptible pause. "How long after she died were you and father married?" "Your father had been a widower nearly two years when we were married," said Rachel, steadily. "Why doesn't Kenneth spell his name as we do?" "Gwyn is the way it was spelled a great many years ago, and it is the correct way, according to your father. It was his father, I believe, who added the last two letters,--I do not know why, unless it was supposed to be more elegant." "It seems strange that he should spell it one way and his own son another," ventured the girl, unsatisfied. "Kenneth was brought up to spell it in the new-fangled way, I guess," was Rachel Gwyn's reply. "You need not ask me questions about the family, Viola. Your father never spoke of them. I am afraid he was not on good terms with them. He was a strange man. He kept things to himself. I do not recollect ever hearing him mention his first wife or his son or any other member of his family in,--well, in twenty years or more." "I should think you would have been a little bit curious. I know I should." "I knew all that was necessary for me to know," said Rachel, somewhat brusquely. "Can't you tell me something more about father's people?" persisted the girl. "I only know that they lived in Baltimore. They never came west. Your father was about twenty years old when he left home and came to Kentucky. That is all I know, so do not ask any more questions." "He never acted like a backwoodsman," said Viola. "He did not talk like one or--" "He was an educated man. He came of a good family." "And you are different from the women we used to see down the river. Goodness, I was proud of you and father. There isn't a woman in this town who--"