One day in the following July, Tessibel was going to Mrs. Longman's hut, with a list of Bible words she did not understand. She stopped at the edge of the forest, and listened to a curious sobbing sound she thought issued from beyond the gorge. Then, thinking herself mistaken, she ran nimbly on, avoiding the long thorns that lay in her path. The noise came more distinctly through the clear air, making the squatter girl lift her head and pause again. There was no mistake this time.

"It ain't no pup," she said aloud, "'cause a pup don't snivel like that."

Raising the red head, she tore long threads of hair loose from the briars, and, drawing the masses of curls about her shoulders, broke into the opening of the forest. Some one was crying, and any sign of suffering brought an immediate response from Tess. It might be Myra, or it might be some little lost child. Spurred on by sympathy, she bounded over a bed of dead chestnut burrs, waded through the water to the other side of the creek, and struggled up the rocks.

Teola Graves, crouched in an attitude of suffering and despair, was seated on the gnarled root of a huge tree. Tessibel watched her for an instant. Here was a holy personage to the squatter, touched with the finger of the mysterious God the student worshiped. And was she not the sister of Frederick, and had not Teola given her coffee from her own cup that winter night? Tessibel had not spoken to the minister's daughter since her father had been taken away to Auburn, and some of the intensity Tess had felt upon that one great day of her life came back to her as she stood hesitant, watching the student's sister.