t see," said Rose, "why you can't do what I ask."

"Have it known," shouted the judge, "in this town and all over the
county, and all over the Supreme Court district, as it would be in
another week, that I had gone to John Culver and got a job in his
hotel--the hotel where I go myself, three times a day--for a girl who
got left behind by a stranded comic-opera company? Now can't you see?
I'm coming up for re-election in two years."

Rose drew in a long sigh and for a moment drooped a little.

"Yes, I see," she said with a rueful little smile. They were afraid of
him, and he was afraid of them.

"I'm sorry about it," said the judge. "If there's anything else I can
do ..." He put his hand tentatively in his pocket.

"No," Rose said, "that isn't what I want. Mr. Culver offered me two
dollars to go away. I suppose you might offer me ten. But I'm not going.
There is somebody in this town who isn't afraid of anybody, if I can
only find out who that somebody is."

For a moment the judge looked annoyed; tried to collect his scattered
dignity. But presently a twinkle lighted up in his eye. Then he smiled.
"You might try Miss Gibbons," he said.

"Who is she?" Rose asked.

By now the judge was smiling broadly. Apparently there was something
exquisitely humorous in the notion of an encounter between Rose and this
lady he'd mentioned.

"She's lived," he said, "and practised gossip and millinery, for the
last thirty years, up over the drug-store on the next corner. It's quite
true that there's nobody in this tier of counties that she's afraid of.
But I don't recommend her seriously. You will get small comfort out of
her."

"All right," said Rose, "we'll see."

She walked straight from the judge's office to the stairs beside the
drug-store on the next corner, which led up to Miss Gibbons' atelier.
She walked fast, conserving as a precious thing that might ebb away from
her, the warm feeling of indignant contempt her talk with the judge had
inspired her with. He was the biggest man in this part of the state, was
he! Why, he was a hollow man! A fabric of lath and plaster with no
structural pillars inside! Well, if the rest of the town was afraid of
him, she certainly wasn't afraid of the rest of the town.

She hadn't any thought of conciliating Miss Gibbons, of asking Miss
Gibbons to give her a chance. She was going to give Miss Gibbons a
chance to prove whether she was lath and plaster like the judge, or a
real person wi