en, seeing only the kind
strong pitying face of the man before her, she told him all he wanted to
know. Would have told him more, but he gently prevented her, sparing her
all he could. When she had finished, he spoke, and his tones were full
of feeling.

"In no way, then, has Philip ever done you any wrong? Have you ever
known him to deceive anybody? Has he been a young man of double dealing,
coarse and rude with some company and refined with others? A father
cannot know all that his children do. James Conlow has little notion of
what you have told me of yourself. Now don't spare my boy if you know
anything."

"Oh, Judge Baronet, Phil never did a thing but be a gentleman all his
life. It made me mad to see how everybody liked him, and yet I don't
know how they could help it." The tears were streaming down her cheeks
now.

And then the thought of her own troubles swept other things away, and
she would again have begged my father to befriend her, but his kind face
gave her comfort.

"Lettie, go back to the store now. I'll send a note to Judson and call
him here. If I need you, I will let you know. If I can do it, I will
help you. I think I can. But most of all, you must help yourself. When
you are free of this tangle, you must keep your heart with all
diligence. Good-bye, and take care, take care of every step. Be a good
woman, Lettie, and the mistakes and wrong-doing of your girlhood will be
forgotten."

As Lettie went slowly down the walk, to the street, my father looked
steadily after her. "Wronged, deceived, neglected, undisciplined," he
murmured. "If I set her on her feet, she may only drop again. She's a
Conlow, but I'll do my best. I can't do otherwise. Thank God for a son
free from her net."

CHAPTER XXV

JUDSON SUMMONED

Though the mills of the gods grind slowly,
Yet they grind exceeding small.

--FRIEDRICH VON LOGAN.

Half an hour later Amos Judson was hurrying toward the courthouse with a
lively strut in his gait, answering a summons from Judge Baronet asking
his immediate presence in the Judge's office.

The irony of wrong-doing lies much in the deception it practices on the
wrong-doer, blunting his sense of danger while it blunts his conscience,
leading him blindly to choose out for himself a way to destruction. The
little widower was jubilant over the summons to the courthouse.

"Good-morning, Baronet," he cried familiarly as soon as he was inside
the door of the private offic