said:--

"Look yar! You're that looney sort a' chap that lives alone over
on the spit yonder, ain't ye?"

North hastened to admit all that the statement might imply.

"And so ye've had a baby left ye to keep you company? Lordy!"
Here she looked as if dangerously near a relapse, and then added,
as if in explanation of her conduct,--

"When I saw ye paddlin' down here,--you thet ez shy as elk in
summer,--I sez, 'He's sick.' But a baby,--Oh, Lordy!"

For a moment North almost hated her. A woman who, in this
pathetic, perhaps almost tragic, picture saw only a ludicrous
image, and that image himself, was of another race than that he had
ever mingled with. Profoundly indifferent as he had always been to
the criticism of his equals in station, the mischievous laughter of
this illiterate woman jarred upon him worse than his cousin's
sarcasm. It was with a little dignity that he pointed out the fact
that at present the child needed nourishment. "It's very young,"
he added. "I'm afraid it wants its natural nourishment."

"Whar is it to get it?" asked the woman.

James North hesitated, and looked around. There should be a baby
somewhere! there MUST be a baby somewhere! "I thought that you,"
he stammered, conscious of an awkward coloring,--"I--that is--I--"
He stopped short, for she was already cramming her apron into her