to hide his emotion. It burned his mouth and gave reason for the moisture in his eye when he looked up at Fred.
"What train air you goin' to take, Fred?" he asked.
"I think I'll catch that eight-fifty flier. It's the best I can get, you know, and vestibuled through, too."
"You have jest finally made up yore mind to go, have you?"
"Nothing could turn me from it now, Uncle 'Liph."
"It seems like a shame. You 'ain't got nothin' to do down in Cincinnaty."
"I'll find something before long. I am going to spend the first few days just in getting used to being free." The next moment he was sorry that he had said it, for he saw his guardian's eyes fill.
"I am sorry, Frederick," she said, with some return to her old asperity, "I am sorry that I 've made your life so hard that you think that you have been a slave. I am sorry that my home has been so onpleasant that you're so powerful glad to git away from it, even to go into a strange city full of wickedness an' sin."
"I did n't mean it that way, Aunt Hester.
