ll him was that my thought was not of them alone.
By my side the little girl with the baby in her arms had seemed
clinging to my skirt.

"What sort of a girl is she?" In Selwyn's voice was relief and
anxiety. "Has she courage enough to take things in her own hands?
I've no conscience so far as her mother is concerned. She deserves
no consideration, but, being an interested party, I--"

"You needn't have anything to do with it. I'm not sure what sort she
is, or how much courage she's got, but worms have been known to turn.
If a hundred years before they were born somebody had begun to train
her parents to be proper parents she might have been a better
product, still there seems to be something to her. For Tom's sake I
hope so."

"He's a nice chap." Selwyn's voice was unqualifiedly emphatic. "And
his father is as honest a man as ever lived. His mother, I believe,
comes of pretty plain people."

"I don't know where she comes from, but she's made a success of her
son, which is what a good many well-born women fail to do. People
aren't responsible for their ancestors, but they are for their
descendants to a great extent, and Mrs. Cressy seems to understand
this more clearly than certain ancestrally dependent persons I have
met. I'd like to know her."

"You're looking at me as if I didn't agree with you. Some day I hope
there may be deeper understanding of, and better training for, the
supreme profession of life; but to get out of generalizations into a
concrete case, what can I do in the way of service to Miss Swink and
Mr. Thomas Cressy? Being, as I said before, an interested party, I
hardly--"

A knock on the door behind him made Selwyn start as if struck; gave
evidence of strain and nervousness of which he was unconscious, and,
jumping up, he went toward the door and opened it. In the hall
Bettina and Jimmy Gibbons were standing. The latter was twisting his
cap round and round in his hand, his big, brown eyes looking first at
Bettina and then at me and then at Selwyn, but to my "Come in," he
paid no attention.

Getting up, I went toward him, put my hand on his shoulder. "What is
it, Jimmy? Why don't you come in?"

"My shoes ain't fitten. I wiped them, but the mud wouldn't come
off." His eyes looked down on his feet. "I could tell you out here
if you wouldn't mind listening."

"I told him I'd take the message or call you down-stairs, but he
wouldn't let me do either one." Bettina, hands beh