there was, however, no sign of a grave, and, at last, they uncovered the skeleton of an old gentleman in a wig and peruke!  There was little doubt now that the boy, no matter what the blot on his ’scutcheon, was of his own flesh and blood, and the Major was tempted to go back at once for him, but it was a long way, and he was ill and anxious to get back home.  So he took the Wilderness Road for the Bluegrass, and wrote old Joel the facts and asked him to send Chad to him whenever he would come.  But the boy would not go.  There was no definite reason in his mind.  It was a stubborn instinct merely—­the instinct of pride, of stubborn independence—­of shame that festered in his soul like a hornet’s sting.  Even Melissa urged him.  She never tired of hearing Chad tell about the Bluegrass country, and when she knew that the Major wanted him to go back, she followed him out in the yard that night and found him on the fence whittling.  A red star was sinking behind the mountains.  “Why won’t you go back no more, Chad?” she said.

“’Cause I hain’t got no daddy er mammy.”  Then Melissa startled him.

“Well, I’d go—­an’ I hain’t got no daddy er mammy.”  Chad stopped his whittling.

“Whut’d you say, Lissy?” he asked, gravely.

Melissa was frightened—­the boy looked so serious.

“Cross yo’ heart an’ body that you won’t nuver tell no body.”  Chad crossed.

“Well, mammy said I mustn’t ever tell nobody—­but I hain’t got no daddy er mammy.  I heerd her a-tellin’ the school-teacher.”  And the little girl shook her head over her frightful crime of disobedience.

“You hain’t?”

“I hain’t!”

Melissa, too, was a waif, and Chad looked at her with a wave of new affection and pity.

“Now, why won’t you go back just because you hain’t got no daddy an’ mammy?”

Chad hesitated.  There was no use making Melissa unhappy.

“Oh, I’d just ruther stay hyeh in the mountains,” he said, carelessly—­lying suddenly like the little gentleman that he was—­lying as he knew, and as Melissa some day would come to know.  Then Chad looked at the little girl a long while, and in such a queer way that Melissa turned her face shyly to the red star.

“I’m goin’ to stay right hyeh.  Ain’t you glad, Lissy?”

The little girl turned her eyes shyly back again.  “Yes, Chad,” she said.

He would stay in the mountains and work hard; and when he grew up he would marry Melissa and they would go away where nobody knew him or her:  or they would stay right there in the mountains where nobody blamed him for what he was nor Melissa for what she was; and he would study law like Caleb Hazel, and go to the Legislature—­but Melissa!  And with the thought of Melissa in the mountains came always the thought of dainty Margaret in the Bluegrass and the chasm that lay between the two—­between Margaret and him, for that matter; and when Mother