pretty," he said dryly.

"Oh, indeed she is--or would be if she was painted up the way they do,"
groaned Miss Martha. "She's too pale--but that might have been all
anger."

"No," said Dunham quickly, "she's had typhoid fever."

Miss Lacey stared at him. "How do you know that?" she demanded.

"Why--why--of course," stammered John, "her short curly hair meant
that. Didn't you think of it at once?"

"That's an absurd conclusion," returned Miss Martha, while Judge Trent
quietly regarded the young man's flushing countenance.

"But if it should be true, Calvin," continued the lady miserably,
"she's not fit yet to go to work at anything! I haven't told you yet. I
talked right out to Mr. Dunham in that parlor about our not wanting
her, you and I; and how we wished she'd stayed West. Oh, I've gone over
it dozens of times since, and it keeps growing worse. Every word I said
was true, and it was perfectly compatible with our intention to help
her all the time; but she couldn't realize that, and I was just sort of
explaining to Mr. Dunham your coolness in the matter by telling him how
miserable Sam made Laura when the girl jumped out of those curtains
like a--like a perfect fury, didn't she, Mr. Dunham?"

He nodded. "She seemed at a white heat with righteous indignation," he
agreed.

Miss Martha took up the tale.

"Then she began to score us all, Calvin, and perhaps _you_ could have
fixed it, but she simply froze me and my apologies; and then that child
positively told us to go. I tried to stand my ground, and Mr. Dunham
came out with your good sensible offer to send her to the Young Women's
Christian Association, and I tried my best to persuade her to let me
take her over there; but she laughed us to scorn, or smiled scorn,
anyway; but I would not leave her until she told me what she was going
to do--and what do you think it is, that your niece, Judge Trent's
niece, proposes to do? She proposes to go on the stage," finished Miss
Martha, in a hollow voice,--"to go on the stage and marry an actor; an
actor named Nat!"

"Fat and middle-aged and mediocre," added Dunham.

Miss Lacey turned on him quickly. "Sylvia didn't say a word about his
being fat and middle-aged!" she declared severely. "Are you presuming
to make fun of this situation, Mr. Dunham?"

Judge Trent's keen gaze again noted the crimsoning ears of his
assistant.

"Why--why, of course I wouldn't do that, Miss Lacey," blurted out the
young man. "Didn't you