"Where are you from?"
"Jamestown, and, by the mass! my young gay cavalier, I have news for you. Marry! have you not heard it already?"
"I have heard nothing."
"Your mother hath married," cried Stump with fiendish chuckle.
"It is false!" cried Robert.
"By the mass! it is true, my young cavalier," and Stump laughed at the expression of misery which came over the young face. "It was a gay notion to send you brats away until the ceremony was over. You might make trouble, you know. Ha, ha, ha! You laid your stick about the shoulders of Mr. Hugh Price, now he will return blow for blow," and, with another chuckle, Stump sauntered away, his gun on his shoulder.
On going to the house Robert had the report confirmed. Some one from Jamestown had brought news of the wedding, and his little sister, with her great dark eyes filled with tears, took him aside and said:
"Brother, mother is married; what does it mean?"
She clung to him, placed her curly head on his bosom and wept. Robert restrained his own tears and sought to soothe his sister.
"Will that man Hugh Price come to live at our house?" she asked.