now--a
woman's heart. He had not counted on having to reckon with Marjie,
having made sure of her mother. It was not in his character to
understand an abiding love.

There was another type of woman whom he misjudged--that of Lettie
Conlow. In his dictatorial little spirit, he did not give a second
thought beyond the use he could make of her in his greedy swooping in of
money.

"O'mie knows too much," Judson informed his friend. "He's better out of
this town. And Lettie, now, I can just do anything with Lettie. You
know, Mapleson, a widower's really more attractive to a girl than a
young man; and as for me, well, it's just in me, that's all. Lettie
likes me."

Whatever Tell thought, he counselled care.

"You can't be too careful, Judson. Girls are the unsafest cattle on this
green earth. My boy fancied Conlow's girl once. I sent him away. He's
married now, and doing well. Runs on a steamboat from St. Louis to New
Orleans. I'd go a little slow about gettin' a girl like Lettie in here."

"Oh, I can manage any girl on earth. Old maids and young things'll come
flockin' round a man with money. Beats all."

This much O'mie had overheard as the two talked together in tones none
too low, in Judson's little cage of an office, forgetting the clerk
arranging the goods for the night.

[Illustration: They came slowly toward us, the two captive women for
whom we waited]

When Judson had found out how Mrs. Whately had tried to help his cause
by appealing to my father, his anger was a fury. Poor Mrs. Whately, who
had meant only for the best, beset with the terror of disgrace to
Marjie through the dishonorable acts of her father, tried helplessly to
pacify him. Between her daughter and herself a great gulf opened
whenever Judson's name was mentioned; but in everything else the bond
between them was stronger than ever.

"She is such a loving, kind daughter, Amos," Mrs. Whately said to the
anxious suitor. "She fills the house with sunshine, and she is so strong
and self-reliant. When I spoke to her about our coming poverty, she only
laughed and held up her little hands, and said, 'They 're equal to it.'
The very day I spoke to her she began to do something. She found three
music pupils right away. She's been giving lessons all this Fall, and
has all she can give the time to. And when I hinted about her father's
name being disgraced, she kissed his picture and put it on the Bible and
said, 'He was true as truth. I won't disgrace