you'll come out of the curtain I'll wire Nat," responded Dunham
eagerly,--"that is, if it's the best thing," he added doubtfully.

"You can't wire him. He's one-nighting. I don't know where to catch
him, and he couldn't come anyway."

John continued to regard her as she left her hold on the curtain and
pressed a wet handkerchief to her eyes. "Come over here and sit down
one minute, please. I won't stay long."

She followed reluctantly to the chair he placed. "You shouldn't stay at
all," she returned. "I don't wish to trouble a perfect stranger with my
woes, and except for Uncle Calvin you have no reason to be here,
and--and I haven't any uncle any more."

It was pitiful to see her effort to control the pretty, grieving lips.
Her soul was smarting with the shock of her discovery, and the
mortification of this stranger's knowledge of it. She wished to send
him out of her sight at once; but her voice failed.

"Now, I'm neither Aunt Martha nor Uncle Calvin," said John, "and I
refuse to be treated as if I were. If you haven't any friends in Boston
I'm sure you can make one of me for five minutes. The situation is
awkward enough, and you might feel for me a bit, eh?"

"No, not if you have come to try to persuade me to do anything.
Nat--Mr. Forsyth, says he is sure I could get a chance on the stage,
and--and he says it would make everything easier if I married him; but
my friends at home urged me so much, and said the stage was a dog's
life, and persuaded me that my own people were the ones to help me now.
My own people!" the speaker pressed the handkerchief to her unsteady
lips again, and her eyes swam afresh.

Dunham regarded her. Of course she could get a position on the stage.
Any creature so pretty always could. He pictured her in some chorus,
these quivering lips reddened and the swimming eyes laughing in the
shade of an outrageous hat.

"I should say the stage last myself," he returned. "Your own people
_are_ the ones. Your Uncle Calvin"--

"I haven't any."

"Well, Judge Trent, then, is what is popularly described as a dried-up
old bachelor. It never occurred to him that happiness might be--that he
might find a daughter in you; but he wants to do his duty by
you--indeed he does," for the girl's face was discouraging, "and, by
George, you ought to let him do it."

"Never! And I always bade his picture good-night. Mother loved him so,
and she taught me." The last word was inaudible.

Dunham leaned forward