ess remarkable in an American woman."

"The Swendons are Swedes by descent, you know. A little phlegm, a lack
of passion, is to be expected, eh? Now, my own taste prefers the
American type--features animated by a nimbler brain; as there, for
example," looking toward Miss Fleming. "Ugly beyond apology. But there
is a subtle attraction in it."

"No doubt you are right. I really know very little about women,"
indifferently. He nodded good-evening, glancing at his watch as he went
out.

The captain was conscious of some malignant influence at his back, and
turning, saw the woman, who had gradually approached, and now stood
still. He hastily stepped between her and his daughter: "Good God! Stand
back, Jane! This woman is following you."

"She looks as if she had the evil eye. But they are very fine eyes,"
said the young girl, inspecting her quietly, as if she had been a toad
that stood suddenly upright in her way.

"I owe you an ill turn, and I shall pay it," said the woman with a
tragic wave of the arms. "I had a way to support myself and my boy for
a year, and you have taken it from me."

"It was such a very poor way! Such a shabby farce! And it was my mother
that--" She stopped, a slight tremor on the fair, quiet face.

"Oh, I shall pay you!" The woman gathered her cheap finery about her and
swept from the room.

In the confusion Judge Rhodes had sought out Laidley, full of righteous
wrath on behalf of his friend the captain, against this limp fellow who
was going to enter heaven with a paltering apology for dishonesty on his
lips. Laidley, however, was reclining in the easy-chair with his eyes
closed, and the closed eyes gave so startling an appearance of death to
the face that the judge was thrown back in his headlong charge. "Why,
why, William! I'm sorry to see you looking so under the weather," he
said kindly.

Laidley's eyes began to blink: he smiled miserably: "It's too late to
throw the blame on the weather, judge. Though I'm going back to Aiken
next week. I came North too soon."

"This affair has turned out a more palpable humbug than I expected,"
trying to approach the point at issue by a gentle roundabout ascent. "I
wish Van Ness had been here--Pliny Van Ness. There's a man whose advice
I seek since I came to Philadelphia on all important matters. A man
whose integrity, justice--God bless me, William! You must know Pliny Van
Ness. Why don't you take his counsel, instead of meddling with these
wretch