her hand wide to point out the lovely
surroundings: "Should anybody come into all this and go away not the
better for it? How do we know what chance has brought this stranger
hither? Or what and where his life began? Maybe, in just some such
favored country village; and once, at least, he was--somebody's son."

The tenderness of her compassionate tone but hardened the other's
purpose.

"Huh! If he were my _own_ son, even, I would have the law on him to the
fullest extremity!" he answered, harshly; and Eunice shivered,
remembering, as he seemed to have forgotten, that poor son of his who
had gone astray and might be roaming the world then, as was this unknown
who had so stirred the lawyer's wrath.

Baffled yet persistent, as he helped her alight at her own threshold,
the Squire put one more sudden question:

"But, after all, there was something--_something_--found in your woods
that day, wasn't there?"

It was not even in Eunice's patience to endure thus much. Caught
unawares, she burst out, indignantly:

"Yes, there was something found, but it does not concern anybody to know
what. Thank you for your courtesy, and--good evening."

The lawyer drove homeward satisfied. She had admitted "the find." He
would now proceed to unearth it. Incidentally, he would unearth the
tramp, but that was, in his estimation, a secondary matter.

Eunice reentered her home, glad to be there, but as Susanna saw at first
greeting, "all stirred up and upsot." She would not allow herself to
talk till she had recovered her composure. She even promptly, though
affectionately, dismissed Katharine to her bed, reminding her that the
morrow brought school again and she must be awake early.

The little girl was disappointed. She had longed for a long, cosy talk
with her guardian over so many, many things. Not least of all concerning
the brilliant scheme which had occurred to her and Monty that day on the
hay. Nor did it please her any too well to lie and listen to the voices
of Eunice and Susanna, murmuring on and on indefinitely, in the
sitting-room below. Commonly the housekeeper went early to sleep on
Sunday nights, for it was her habit to rise before daybreak and set
about her Monday washing. To-night the great clock struck eleven,
actually eleven, before this conference broke up; only to be resumed at
intervals during the next morning, whenever the pair were alone.

However, Katharine had other matters on hand so absorbing that even the