In the young mother the woman rose supreme and she would
not permit her mind to hold a harmful thought.
Through the hours of her travail, when Lois Ann, desperate and
frightened, had implored, threatened, and commanded that she should tell
the name of the father of her child, she only moaned and closed her lips
the firmer. But when she looked upon her baby she smiled radiantly and
whispered to the patient old creature beside her:
"Miss Lois Ann, this lil' child has no father. It is my baby and God
sent it. I shall call her Ann--cuz you've been right good to me--you
sholy have."
So it was "lil' Ann" and, since the strange reticence and misunderstood
joyousness remained, Lois Ann, at her wit's end, believing that death
or insanity threatened, went secretly to the Greyson house to confess
and get assistance.
Peter was away with Jed. The two hung together now like burrs. Whatever
of relaxation Martin could hope for lay in Greyson; whatever of material
comfort Peter could command, must come through Jed, and so they
laboured, in slow, primitive fashion, and edged in a little pleasure
together. Marg, having achieved her ambition, was content and, for the
first time in her life, easy to get along with. And into this
comparative Eden Lois Ann came with words that shattered the peace and
calm.
In Marg's private thought she had never doubted that her sister had
often been with Burke Lawson in the Hollow.
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