CHAPTER I.



  The early morning sunlight entered boldly
through the small panes of glass into the
kitchen of the toll-house and fell in a check-
ered band across the breakfast table set against
the sill of the one long, low window.
  The meal was a simple one, plainly served,
but a touch of gold and purple-royal colors of
the season-was given it by a bunch of autumn
flowers, golden-rod and wild aster, stuck in a
glass jar set on the window sill.
  A glance at the two seated at each end of the
narrow table would have enabled one to decide
quickly to whom was due this desire for orna-
mentation, for the mother was a sharp-fea-
tured, rather untidy-looking woman, on whom
the burden of hard work and poverty had laid
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