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Abel Baragar drew himself up. "Well, I say this. I'll give you three thousand dollars, and you can go somewhere else to live. I'll keep the boy here. That's what I've fixed in my mind to do. You can go, and the boy stays. I ain't goin' to live with you that spoiled George's life."

Cassy Mavor had made her following, had won her place, was the idol of "the gallery"; and yet she was "of the people," as she had always been, until her first sickness came, and she had gone out to Lumley's, out along the foothills of the Rockies. What had made her fall in love with George Baragar? She could not have told, if she had been asked.

The very first words uttered had plunged Abel Baragar and his son's wife into the midst of the difficulty which she had hoped might, after all, be avoided. "Come, and I'll show you your room, Cassy," she said. "It faces south, and you'll get the sun all day. It's like a sun-parlour. We're going to have supper in a couple of hours, and you must rest some first. Is the house warm enough for you?"

It ain't a feeling that'd make a sick woman live long." Aunt Kate did not strike often, but when she did, she struck hard. Abel Baragar staggered a little under this blow, for, at the moment, it seemed to him that he saw his dead wife's face looking at him from the chair where her sister now sat.

The face was George's, the sensuous, luxurious mouth; but the eyes were not those of a Baragar, nor yet those of Aunt Kate's family; and they were not wholly like the mother's. They were full and brimming, while hers were small and whimsical; yet they had her quick, humourous flashes and her quaintness. "Have I changed so much? Have you forgotten me?" Cassy asked, looking the old man in the eyes.

"Phenie Tyson didn't marry Abner because he was a saint, but because he was a man, I suppose," she replied, gravely. "And the old folks?" "Both dead. What Abner done sent the old man to his grave. But Abner's mother died a year before." "What Abner done killed his father," said Abel Baragar, with dry emphasis. "Phenie Tyson was extravagant wanted this and that, and nothin' was too good for her.

One by one the old woman's boys and girls had died four of them and she was now alone, with not a single grandchild left to cheer her; and the life out here with Abel Baragar had been unrelieved by much that was heartening to a woman; for Black Andy, Abel's son, was not an inspiring figure, though even his moroseness gave way under her influence.

The face was George's, the sensuous, luxurious mouth; but the eyes were not those of a Baragar, nor yet those of Aunt Kate's family; and they were not wholly like the mother's. They were full and brimming, while hers were small and whimsical; yet they had her quick, humourous flashes and her quaintness. "Have I changed so much? Have you forgotten me?" Cassy asked, looking the old man in the eyes.

In all her days the vanished wife had never hinted at as much as Aunt Kate suggested now, and Abel Baragar shut his eyes against the thing which he was seeing. He was not all hard, after all. Aunt Kate turned to Black Andy now. "Mebbe Cassy ain't for long," she said. "Mebbe she's come out for what she came out for before.

It ain't a feeling that'd make a sick woman live long." Aunt Kate did not strike often, but when she did she struck hard. Abel Baragar staggered a little under this blow, for, at the moment, it seemed to him that he saw his dead wife's face looking at him from the chair where her sister now sat.