at I
thought this a most unwise way for a child to spend her time, but there
was something about Nancy herself which prevented my giving orders. I
can not say that she ever disobeyed me, and yet, I knew then, as I know
now, that had I tried to stop her she would have evaded me, and as it
turned out in the end, it was all for the best.

I who was with her day by day could feel her growing dislike of Hugh
Pitcairn, and once she came to me after a visit to the court, her
cheeks flaming, her eyes dilated, and her body literally shaking with
emotion.

"He cursed at Pitcairn as they dragged him out," she said, and then
bringing her little fists down on my knee, she cried with apparent
irrelevancy:

"It's not the way, Jock! It's not the way!"

Less than a fortnight after I was sitting over some accounts in the
east room, when Hugh Pitcairn entered unannounced.

"Well, Jock Stair," he said, "that daughter of yours lost me as pretty
a case to-day as I ever had."

"Indeed, Hugh," I returned, "I'm in no way answerable for that."

"I don't know about that!" he broke in. "This case was one of a young
woman who had taken a purse. She established the fact that she was a
widow with two small children, one of whom was dying and needed
medicine. I thought at first that she borrowed one of the children,
they frequently do, but it was established hers. I drew attention to
the anarchy which would inevitably follow if each individual were
allowed to help himself to his neighbor's belongings, and the jury was
with me. As I was concluding, that child of yours slipped from her
place, climbed the steps on the side, and heeding judges and jury less
than Daft Jamie, went straight toward the prisoner, pulled herself up
on a chair beside the woman, and putting her arms around the culprit's
neck, as though to defend her against the devil himself, turned her
eyes in my direction and fairly glowered at me.

"The spectators cheered, and a woman in the front cried, 'God bless the
baby,' while the judge--Carew it was, a sentimentalist and a menace to
the bar--dried the tears from his eyes openly, _and the jury decided
against me without leaving the box_," he thundered, as though I were
in some way responsible.

I groaned. Taking this for sympathy, he went on:

"I'm glad ye feel about it as I do."

"To be frank with you, Pitcairn," I answered, "I don't; and it's not
for your lost case I groan, but for what is likely to come to me
because of