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A Strong Man's Weakness

Through all the year's round of weather, good and bad; through the snow of January and the wind of March; through the glare of the warm April days before the foliage casts its protective shade over the earth; through the heat of midsummer and the glorious wine-clear air of October, round again to the rigors of Christmas—through all the circle of the twelvemonth Melissa's door stood open.

To all appearance, ventilation is a hobby ridden and overridden in the Carolina mountains, but the doors are not left open for hygiene's sake, or even in hospitality's good name. It is to promote the performance of the ordinary duties of life, more comfortably carried on in the light than in the dark; for since the shuttered openings that serve as windows are unglazed, the door must be left open to admit the sun's bright rays.

The one room of Melissa's cabin was scrupulously clean. Pictures of the President and of one of the happy victims of Somebody's Pleasant Pain-Killer were tacked upon the walls beside long strings of dried red peppers and of okra. A gourd, cut into the shape of a cup, hung upon a nail by its crooked neck. The bed was covered neatly with a blue-and-white homespun coverlet, and a kettle steamed upon the fire at the opposite end of the room.

The sunlight swept across the floor as far as Sydney's feet, and glinted upon the silver spur at her left heel. It crept up to her radiant face and glowing hair. As she held the little baby in her strong young arms, she stood transfigured like an angel of old in the eyes of Friedrich von Rittenheim as he walked up the trail that served as an approach to the cabin.

"Himmlisches Mädchen," he whispered, and pulled off his cap with a feeling of guilt that he was bringing into this pure presence his thoughts of hatred and revenge.

Little Miss Yarebrough had a narrow escape from a fall as her temporary nurse's eyes fell upon the figure outside the door.

"Ah, Baron, it is you!" cried Sydney, tucking the baby into the hollow of one arm and extending her hand. "Grandmother has been disturbed about you. Have you been away? It is a long time since you were at Oakwood."

"Has it seemed so to you?" he said, tenderly. "I have been to the town, and I am but now r-returned within a pair of minutes. I have come to ask Mrs. Yare-brough to put into order my house for me."

The unexpected sight of Sydney was like the sudden breaking out of sunshine through a bank of stormy cloud to the man whose whole mind had been filled for days with poisonous thoughts. He beamed upon Melissa and shook hands with her cordially.