Birt kept silent, but the gloom and trouble in his face suddenly touched her heart.

“Thar now, Birt!” she exclaimed, with a world of consolation in her tones, “I don’t mean ter say that, nuther.  Ain’t I a-thinkin’ day an’ night o’ how smart ye be—­stiddy an’ sensible an’ hard-workin’ jes’ like a man—­an’ what a good son ye hev been to me!  An’ the t’other chill’n air good too, an’ holps me powerful, though Rufe air hendered some, by the comical natur o’ the critter.”

She broke out with a cheerful laugh, in which Birt could not join.

“An’ I mus’ be gittin’ breakfus fur the chill’n,” she said, kneeling down on the hearth, and uncovering the embers which had been kept all night under the ashes.

“Don’t ye fret, sonny.  I ain’t goin’ ter grudge Nate his gold mine.  I reckon sech a good son ez ye be, an’ a gold mine too, would be too much luck fur one woman.  Don’t ye fret, sonny.”

Birt’s self-control gave way abruptly.  He rose in great agitation, and started toward the door.  Then he paused, and broke forth with passionate incoherence, telling amidst sobs and tears the story of the woodland’s munificence to him, and how he had flung the gift away.

In recounting the hopes that had deluded him, the fears that had gnawed, and the despair in which they were at last merged, he did not notice, for a time, her look as she still knelt motionless before the embers on the hearth.

He faltered, and grew silent; then stared dumbly at her.

She seemed as one petrified.  Her face had blanched; its lines were as sharp and distinct as if graven in stone; only her eyes spoke, an eloquent anguish.  Her faculties were numbed for a moment.  But presently there was a quiver in her chin, and her voice rang out.

And yet did she understand? did she realize the loss of the mine?  For it was not this that she lamented

“Birt Dicey!” she cried in an appalled tone.  “Did ye hide it from yer mother—­an’ tell Nate Griggs?”

Birt hung his head.  The folly of it!

“What ailed ye, ter hide it from me?” she asked deprecatingly, holding out her worn, hard-working hands.  “Hev I ever done ye harm?”

“Nuthin’ but good.”

“Don’t everybody know a boy’s mother air bound ter take his part agin all the worl’?”

“Everybody but me,” said the penitent Birt.

“What ailed ye, ter hide it from me?  What did ye ’low I’d do?”

“I ’lowed ye wouldn’t want me ter go pardners with Nate,” he said drearily.

“I reckon I wouldn’t!” she admitted.

“Ye always said he war a snake in the grass.”

“He hev proved that air a true word.”

“I wisht I hedn’t tole him!” cried Birt vainly.  “I wisht I hedn’t.”

He watched her with moody eyes as she rose at last with a sigh and went mechanically about her preparations for breakfast.