f it, but it's going to
take every cent the family can get together to pull out of the hole.
Hardly half a dozen persons outside the family know the real state of
the case. I have taken you into my confidence because you are an old and
intimate friend of the family and because we must reach some decision
about Judith. Her mother wants her to stay right where she is now, just
as if nothing had happened. Judith has always been very proud and her
mother thinks it would be too much of a come-down for her to live in
cheaper quarters."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Walker. "On the contrary, I think it would do
Judith good to associate with girls who are not so well off. Put her
with a group of clever, hard-working girls like the ones at Queen's, for
instance."

Molly's heart gave a leap. How much she would like to tell the girls
this compliment the President had paid them! Then again the
embarrassment of her position overwhelmed her. She was about to force
herself to rise and confess that she had been an unwitting eavesdropper
when she heard the Professor's voice from the door saying:

"Well, you advise me to do nothing this evening? Richard is going to
call me up again in an hour on the long distance in the village for the
sake of privacy. If he agrees with you, I'll wait until to-morrow."

"Where's Mr. Blount now?"

"They think he's on his way to South America. You see, Richard, in some
way, found out about the fake mining deal and the family is trying to
get together enough money to pay back the stockholders. There are not
many local people involved. Most of it was sold in the West and South
and we hope to refund all the money in the course of time. It's nearly
half a million, you know, and while the Blounts have a good deal of real
estate, it takes time to raise money on it."

"What did you say the name of the mine was? I have heard, but it has
slipped my memory."

"'The Square Deal Mine'; a bad name, considering it was about the
crookedest deal ever perpetrated."

Molly started so violently that the Venetian vases on the mantel
quivered and the little table on which stood the picture in the gilt
frame trembled like an aspen.

"The Square Deal Mine!" Had she heard anything else but that name all
summer? Had not her mother, on the advice of an old friend, invested
every cent she could rake and scrape together, except the fund for her
own college expenses, in that very mine? And everybody in the
neighborhood had d