She would scarcely have eaten at all had not Jim Otis’s mother remarked, as she watched her reluctant sips of the good porridge, “As I said just now, you ain’t any daughter of mine, and I ain’t any right to dictate, but if you want to get that man, whoever he is, out of prison, you’ll have to eat enough to get some strength to do it.”

Simply placid as Mrs. Otis looked, she had often wisdom enough to gain her ends by means of that shrewd finesse of government which appeals to the reason of others as applied to the furthering of their own desires.

Madelon after that swallowed her porridge almost greedily, and when supper was over went up-stairs to bed, following Mrs. Otis as readily as any meek young daughter of her own might have done.  The spirit of resistance was laid for the time in this poor Madelon Hautville, but it had yielded, after all, more to the will of her own reason than to Jim Otis’s mother or the weariness of her own flesh.

When Mrs. Otis came down-stairs she was flushed with pleasant motherly victory.  “She’s drunk all that hot cordial,” she said to her son, “every drop of it, and I’ve tucked her into bed with the extra comfortables over her, an’ she eat quite a good supper, an’ I told her to go right to sleep, and I guess she will.”

“If she don’t she’ll be down sick,” said Jim, sternly.  He sat by the fire, tuning his fiddle.

“She can’t hear your fiddle so it’ll keep her awake, can she?” asked Mrs. Otis, anxiously.

“Of course she can’t, up in the front chamber, with all the doors shut.  Wouldn’t have touched it if she could.”

“Well, I don’t s’pose she can.  Jim—­”

Jim twanged a string.  “What is it, mother?”

“I don’t want to have you think I’m interferin’, Jim.  I know you’re grown-up now, and I know there’s things a young man might not want to tell his mother till he gets ready, but I do kind of want to know one thing, Jim.”

Jim tightened the G string.  He bent his face low over his violin.  “I don’t know as I’ve ever kept much back from you, mother,” he said, soberly.

“No, I know you ain’t, Jim; you’ve always told more to your mother than most boys.  But I didn’t just know but this might be something you hadn’t got ready to speak about.”

“What is it you want to know, mother?”

“Jim, is that your girl?”

Jim laughed a little, although his eyes were grave; he raise the fiddle to his shoulder.  “Lord, no, mother.  I wouldn’t get a girl without asking you.”

“I didn’t know but you might have seen her over to Ware when you’ve been there to parties, and not said anything.”

“I never saw her but that once, mother.”  Jim struck up “Kinloch of Kinloch,” but he played softly, lest by any chance Madelon, aloft in her chamber, might hear.

“She’s handsome as a picture,” said his mother.  “Who is it that’s in prison, Jim?”

“A young man by the name of Gordon.”