departed Miss Upton had to face Mrs.
Whipp and her injured sniffs and silent implications of maltreatment;
but she sketched the story to her, eliciting the only question she
dreaded.

"What did you say to the girl in your letter? Did you write her to come
here?" Mrs. Whipp's manner was stony.

"Yes, I did," replied Miss Mehitable bravely.

"Then I s'pose I'd better be makin' other plans," said Charlotte, going
to Pearl and picking her up as if preparing for instant departure.

Miss Upton's eyes shone with exasperation. "I wish you wouldn't drive me
crazy, Charlotte Whipp. If you haven't any sympathy for a poor orphan in
jail on a desolate farm, then I wouldn't own it, if I was you. You can
see what chance she has o' comin' here. If the _law_ has to settle it,
she's likely to be toothless before she can make a move."

Mrs. Whipp was startled by the wrathful voice and manner of one usually
so pacific.

"I didn't mean to make you mad, Miss Upton," she said with a meek change
of manner; and there the matter dropped.

Now was a crucial time for Geraldine Melody. Her father's exhortation to
her not to consider him and the doubt which his letter had raised as to
his legal guilt, coupled with the memory of the vigorous young knight in
knickerbockers, gave her the feeling that she might at least obey the
latter's mysterious hint.

Rufus Carder was still in fear that he had pushed matters too fast, and
the next morning, when his captive came downstairs to help get the
breakfast, he contented himself with devouring her with his eyes. She
felt that she must guard her every look lest he observe a vestige of her
reviving hope and courage. She must return to the thought of becoming a
"trusty." It would be difficult to steer a course between the docility
that would encourage odious advances on the one hand, and on the other
a too obvious repugnance which would put her jailer on his guard. Of
course there were moments when the lines of her father's letter seemed
to her to admit criminality, but at others the natural hopefulness of
youth asserted itself, and she interpreted his words to indicate only
his humiliation and disgraceful debts.

There was an innate loftiness, an ethereal quality, about the girl's
personality which Carder always felt, in spite of himself, even at the
very moments when he was obtruding his familiarities upon her. She was
like a fine jewel which he had stolen, but which baffled his efforts to
set it am