occasions, after crossing the 'Stony Bottom, which divides the two
farms, and toiling up the hill to the Grange, she had met M'Adam
in the door.

"Yo' maun let me put yo' bit things straight .for yo', mister," she
had said shyly; for she feared the little man.

"Thank ye, Mrs. Moore," he had answered with the sour smile the
Dalesmen knew so well, "but ye maun think I'm a waefu' cripple."
And there he had stood, grinning sardonically, opposing his small
bulk in the very centre of the door.

Mrs. Moore had turned down the hill, abashed and hurt at the
reception of her offer; and her husband, proud to a fault, had
forbidden her to repeat it. Nevertheless her motherly heart went
out in a great tenderness for the little orphan David. She knew well
the desolateness of his life; his father's aversion from him, and its
inevitable consequences.

It became an institution for the boy to call every morning at
Kenmuir, and trot off to the village school with Maggie Moore.
And soon the lad came to look on Kenmuir as his true home, and
James and Elizabeth Moore as his real parents. His greatest
happiness was to be away from the Grange. And the ferret-eyed
little man there noted the fact, bitterly resented it, and vented his
ill-humor accordingly.

It was this, as he deemed it, uncalled-for trespassing on his
authority which was the chief cause of his animosity against James
Moore. The Master of Kenmuir it was at whom he was aiming