of other days, "I've come to you for help."

He sat down opposite her, with his back to the window.

"What can I do for you, Lettie?"

"I don't know," the girl answered confusedly. "I don't know--how much to
tell you."

John Baronet looked steadily at her a moment. Then he drew a deep breath
of relief. He was a shrewd student of human nature, and he could
sometimes read the minds of men and women better than they read
themselves. "She has not come to accuse, but to get my help," was his
conclusion.

"Tell me the truth, Lettie, and as much of it as I need to know," he
said kindly. "Otherwise, I cannot help you at all."

Lettie sat silent a little while. A struggle was going on within her,
the strife of ill-will against submission and penitent humiliation. Some
men might not have been able to turn the struggle, but my father
understood. The girl looked up at length with a pleading glance. She had
helped to put misery in two lives dear to the man before her. She had
even tried to drag down to disgrace the son on whom his being centred.
In no way could she interest him, for his ideals of life were all at
variance with hers. Small wonder, if distrust and an unforgiving spirit
should be his that day. But as this man of wide experience and large
ideals of right and justice looked at this poor erring girl, he put away
everything but the determination to help her.

"Lettie," he said in that deep strong voice that carried a magnetic
power, "I know some things you do not want to tell. It is not what you
have done, but what you are to do that you must consider now."

"That's just it, Mr. Baronet," Lettie cried. "I've done wrong, I know,
but so have other people. I can't help some things I've done to some
folks now. It's too late. And I hated 'em."

The old sullen look was coming back, and her black brows were drawn in a
frown. My father was quick to note the change.

"Never mind what can't be helped, Lettie," he said gravely. "A good many
things right themselves in spite of our misdoing. But let's keep now to
what you can do, to what I can do for you." His voice was full of a
stern kindness, the same voice that had made me walk the straight line
of truth and honor many a time in my boyhood.

"You can summon Amos Judson here and make him do as he has promised to
do." Lettie cried, the hot tears filling her eyes.

"Tell me his promise first," her counsel said. And Lettie told him her
story. As she went on from point to