She touched Miss Lady's tumbled tawny hair with her own gentle hand. "My girl," said she, "my dear girl; and you never knew your own mother? You never knew what that was? My dear, it is very sweet to have a mother."
Miss Lady, knowing no better thing, kissed her impulsively, and the older lady drew her close, in such communion as only women may understand. Mrs. Eddring again touched lightly the red-brown hair. "I never had a daughter," said she. "I've only a boy. That's my boy there."
Eddring, who had meantime taken Cherry's bridle rein, was now walking on in advance toward the lane that led to the house. The girl caught the old lady's hands in her own, and then threw her arms about the thin figure in a swift embrace. So, arm in arm, they also turned toward the lane; and which was then welcoming the other home neither could have said.
CHAPTER XXII
AMENDE HONORABLE
"Well, what do you want, boy?" Blount gruffly asked of Eddring on the morning after his arrival. "Are you on a still hunt for that Congressional nomination?"
"No, it's of a heap more importance than that," said Eddring.
"Humph! Maybe. Bill, oh, Bill! Here, you go and get the big glass mug, and a bunch of mint. Come out here, Eddring. Sit down on the board-pile in the shade—I've been going to build a roof on my doghouse with these boards as long as I can remember."
They had just seated themselves upon the board-pile, and were waiting for Bill with the mint when Eddring looked up and smiled. "Who's that coming?" he asked, pointing down the lane.
"That? Why, I reckon that's Jim Bowles and his wife, Sar' Ann. They come up once in a while to get a little milk, when they ain't too durn tired. Their cow—why, say, it was a good many years ago your blamed railroad killed that cow. They never did get another one since. And that reminds me, Mr. John Eddring—that reminds me—"