The young man paused for a moment, his dark eyes gazing earnestly into

the clear gray eyes watching him intently; then, without shifting his

gaze, he continued, in low tones: "She told me that about a year before my birth she and my father were

married against her father's will, his only objection to the marriage

being that my father was poor. She told me of their happy married life

that followed, but that my father was ambitious, and the consciousness

of poverty and the fact that he could not provide for her as he wished

galled him. She told me how, when there was revealed to them the promise

of a new love and life within their little home, he redoubled his

efforts to do for her and hers, and then, dissatisfied with what he

could accomplish there, went out into the new West to build a home for

his little family. She told of the brave, loving letters that came so

faithfully and the generous remittances to provide for every possible

need in the coming emergency. Then Fortune beckoned him still farther

west, and he obeyed, daring the dangers of that strange, wild country

for the love he bore his wife and his unborn child. From that country

only one letter ever was received from him. Just at that time I was

born, and my life came near costing hers who bore me. For weeks she lay

between life and death, so low that the report of her death reached her

parents, bringing them broken-hearted and, as they supposed, too late to

her humble home. They found her yet living and threw their love and

their wealth into the battle against death. In all this time no news

came from the great West. As soon as she could be moved my mother and

her child were taken to her father's home. Her father forgave her, but

he had no forgiveness for her husband and no love for his child. He

tried to make my mother believe her husband had deserted her, but she

was loyal in her trust in him as in her love for him. She named her

child for his father, 'John,' but as her father would not allow the name

repeated in his hearing she gave him the additional name of 'Darrell,'

by which he was universally known; but in those sacred hours when she

told me of my father and taught me to pray for him, she always called me

by his name, 'John Britton.'"

As he ceased speaking both men rose simultaneously to their feet. The

elder man placed his hands upon the shoulders of the younger, and,

standing thus face to face, they looked into each other's eyes as though

each were reading the other's inmost soul.

"What was your mother's name?" Mr. Britton asked, in low tones.




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