leaning down her head on her hand and trying to still the
throbbing of her temples. What a revelation was here, from lips so
innocent and evidently so truthful! And how the whole story tallied with
what she had heard in her ambush and conjectured from other
circumstances! She was on the right scent, beyond a question--but here
came her difficulty,--how to cut this knot of villainy, even now that it
lay plainly before her! This was the question that labored through the
young girl's brain and bent down her head on her hand. And yet it must
be done, whatever the difficulty. Courage, Joseph Harris!--there never
was a difficult thing, either in wickedness or benevolence, that a woman
could not master when she once fairly set about it!

"It is indeed a sad story that you have been telling," she said, "and
it interests me more and more in the family and especially in Mary. I
wish I could see her and talk to her for half an hour." She had gathered
all the information that she had any right to expect, and now came the
necessary confidence. "What would you say now, Susy, if I could put back
some of the light into Miss Mary Crawford's eyes?"

"_You?_" and the country girl looked at her as if a pair of horns had
suddenly sprouted from under the dark hair.

"Yes, _I!_" echoed the "amateur detective."

"I don't see how you can do it, especially as you do not know these
people or anything much about them," said Susan. "But indeed I should be
very much pleased if you could, and I should--yes, I should just think
you a witch!"

"Well," said Josephine, "suppose then that I had known something about
these people for a long time, and that I had come up to West Falls not
only to see my dear aunt and cousin, but to serve them in a way that
they knew nothing about--would you and your mother keep the secret and
help me?"

The wondering eyes looked at her more wonderingly still, but they seemed
to see that the speaker was not jesting, and some of those country
people have a faith in the abilities of people from the "big city," not
always justified.

"Certainly I would," said Susy, "and I am sure that mother would do
anything to serve Mary. But what is it all, Cousin Joe?"

"That is what I am just going to tell you, or at least a part of it,"
said Josephine. "In one word, all these stories about Richard Crawford
are _lies_. He is a good, true-hearted young man, as can be found in the
world. I know him very well, and visit him and his s