ctantly enough, had to go downstairs, since she
understood thoroughly that to keep on pressing Zara for an explanation
while she was in such a nervous state would do more harm than good.

"Could you find out what was wrong?" asked Eleanor anxiously when Bessie
came down. Charlie Jamieson was still with her on the porch, smoking a
cigar and frowning as if he were thinking of something very
unpleasant. He was, as a matter of fact. He was changing all his ideas
of the case in which Eleanor's encounter with the two girls had involved
him, since, with Brack for an opponent, he knew only too well that he was
in for a hard fight, and if, as he supposed, the opposition was entirely
without a reasonable case, a fight in which dirty and unfair methods
were sure to be employed.

Bessie shook her head.

"She wouldn't tell me anything--just begged me to leave her alone and
said she'd be all right presently," she answered. "I've seen her this
way before and, really, there's nothing to do but wait until she feels
better."

"You've seen her this way before, you say?" said Jamieson, quickly.
"What was the matter then? What made her act so? If we know why she did
it before, perhaps it will give us a clue to why she is behaving in such
a queer fashion now."

Bessie hesitated.

"She's awfully sensitive," she said. "Sometimes, when people have just
joked with her a little bit, without meaning to say anything nasty at
all, she's thought they were angry at her, or laughing at her for being
a foreigner, and she's gone off just like this. I thought at first--"

"Yes?" said Eleanor, encouragingly, when Bessie stopped. "Don't be
afraid to tell us what you think, Bessie. We just want to get to the
bottom of this strange fit of hers, you know."

"Well, it seems awfully mean to say it," said poor Bessie, "when you've
been so lovely to us, but I thought maybe someone had joked about her
in some way. You know she sometimes pronounces words in a funny fashion,
as if she'd only read them, and had never heard anyone speak them. In
Hedgeville lots of people used to laugh at her for that. I think that's
why she stopped going to school. And I thought, perhaps, that was what
was the matter--"

"It might have happened, of course," said Eleanor, "and without anyone
meaning to hurt her feelings. I'd be very careful myself, but some of
the other people around the house wouldn't know, of course. But, no,
that won't explain it, Bessie. Not this time."