is demonstration, Miss Price," said the judge.
"Coming from one of your standing in this community, it is doubly
shocking, for your position in society should be, of itself, a guarantee
of your loyalty to the established organization of order. It should be
your endeavor to uphold rather than defeat, the ends of justice.

"The defendant at the bar has the benefit of counsel, who is competent,
we believe, to advise him. Your admonition was altogether out of place.
I am pained and humiliated for you, Miss Price.

"This breach is one which could not, ordinarily, be passed over simply
with a reprimand. But, allowing for the impetuosity of youth, and the
emotion of the moment, the court will excuse you with this. Similar
outbreaks must be guarded against, and any further demonstration will be
dealt with severely. Gentlemen, proceed with the case."

Alice stood through the judge's lecture unflinchingly. Her face was
pale, for she realized the enormity of her transgression, but there was
neither fear nor regret in her heart. She met the judge's eyes with
honest courage, and bowed her head in acknowledgment of his leniency
when he dismissed her.

From her seat she smiled, faintly above the tremor of her breast, to
Joe. She was not ashamed of what she had done, she had no defense to
make for her words. Love is its own justification, it wants no advocate
to plead for it before the bar of established usage. Its statutes have
needed no revision since the beginning, they will stand unchanged until
the end.

The prosecuting attorney had seen his castle fall, demolished and beyond
hope of repair, before a charge from the soft lips of a simple girl.
Long and hard as he had labored to build it up, and encompass Joe within
it, it was in ruins now, and he had no heart to set his hand to the task
of raising it again that day. He asked for an adjournment to morning,
which the weary judge granted readily.

People moved out of the room with less haste and noise than usual, for
the wonder, and the puzzle, of what they had heard and seen was over
them.

What was the aim of that girl in shutting that big, gangling, raw-boned
boy's mouth just when he was opening it to speak, and to speak the very
words which they had sat there patiently for days to hear? What was he
to Alice Price, and what did she know of the secret which he had been
keeping shut behind his stubborn lips all that time? That was what they
wanted to know, and that was what