Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/122

118 Marse Bob an' me's the onlies' ones in this house what air tryin' ter keep quiet."

Even the noisy endeavors of her two friends to keep quiet did not awaken Rebecca. The Misses Taylor retired to their bedchambers without looking in on the stranger occupying the room that had been their brother's. Father and son sat in silence on the vine-covered porch. It was a night of nights. The moon was up and the rolling, grassy lawn with its great fringed elm, ash and oak trees was flooded with a radiance almost unearthly in its beauty. The wonder of it was touching the hearts of both men, but a certain lack of sympathetic understanding kept them apart. The katydids and tree frogs took up their song of summer and 'way off by the river a whippoorwill called persistently.

Once more before he went to rest Major Taylor tiptoed upstairs into Rebecca's room. She was sleeping like an infant. The moonlight lay in patches on the floor and bed. One slender little hand was in its path and for a moment the old man fancied he could detect a likeness between that hand and Tom's.

"Something about the thumb and curve of the wrist," he said to himself. "But I wish she did not have such black hair. It is fine, though, as