"It's all right, dear Cassi. You fought hard; but Hen's apologized, and if you make a noise you will wake mother. Now go to bed."
She led him to the foot of the stairs and kissed him good-night. He obeyed her, for her will was dominant in that household.
CHAPTER XII.
LIZZĪ PROVES HER INNOCENCE.
When Cassi had entered his room, Lizzī lifted her mother and laid her on her bed. Then she sent Levi for Margaret Reed, a little, winning, sympathetic woman who was summoned on all occasions. In times of sorrow she shed a soft radiance on darkened hearts, and in times of rejoicing she was bright as the sunshine. "Send for Gret"—no one called her Mrs. Reed; toddlers said "Det"—was the suggestion of sadness, the impulse of joy, and Gret, childless herself, but mother to all the babies and sister to all the mothers of the village, answered every call.
She had no rebuke for Henry Myers, whom she met as she entered the McAnay home, except such as just hearts will sometimes express by an unconscious manner of repugnance. Henry was sensitive enough to feel it, and he departed cursing himself bitterly.
Gret went straight to Lizzī, and felt like a giantess as the latter knelt before her and clung to her dress.
"I killed her, Gret; I killed her. I never told her, and it broke her heart; and I am a murderer, worse than Henry Myers would have been if he had killed Cassi. She couldn't think it was all right, and when she heard the boys was fighting for me, she couldn't stand it any longer and just died where I left her. And I was so crazy to have Cassi brought home, so I could say to her, 'There, mother, you see how he believed in me, fightin' till he died;' but the Lord shut her eyes so she couldn't see the cruel sight. Yes, I'm punished for my stubborn silence. If I had showed it to her she wouldn't have died so sudden."
Gret did not invite confidence by asking Lizzī what she should have shown her mother.
"And poor father," Lizzī continued, "away out in the cabin alone, his wife dead and his daughter disgraced—how will I tell him that mother is dead?"