"Well, well," said the judge impatiently, "what have you to say about the character of this little girl?" Mrs. Snawdor shifted her last husband's hat from the right side of her head to the left, and began confidentially: "Well I'll tell you, Jedge, Nance ain't so bad as whut they make her out. She's got her faults. I ain't claimin' she ain't. But she ain't got a drop of meanness in her, an' that's more than I can say for some grown folks present." Mrs. Snawdor favored Mr. Mason with such a sudden and blighting glance that the janitor quailed visibly. "Do you have trouble controlling her?" asked the judge. "Nothin' to speak of. She's a awful good worker, Nance is, when you git her down to it. But her trouble is runnin'. Let anything happen in the alley, an' she's up an' out in the thick of it. I'm jes' as apt to come home an' find her playin' ball with the baby in her arms, as not. But I don't have to dress her down near as often as I used to." "Then you wouldn't say she was a bad child?" Mrs. Snawdor's emphatic negative was arrested in the utterance by Mr. Mason's accusing eye. "Well, I never seen no child that was a angel," she compromised. "Does Nancy go to school?" the judge asked. "Well, I was threatenin' her the other day, if she didn't behave herself, I was goin' to start her in again." "I ain't been sence Christmas," volunteered Nance, still sniffling. "You shet yer mouth," requested Mrs. Snawdor with great dignity. "Why hasn't she been to school since Christmas?" the judge proceeded sternly. "Well, to tell you the truth, it was on account of Mr. Snawdor. He got mad 'bout the vaccination. He don't believe in it. Says it gives you the rheumatism. He's got a iron ring on ever' one of the childern. Show yours to the jedge, Nance! He says ef they has to vaccinate 'em to educate 'em, they ain't goin' to de neither one." "But don't you know that we have compulsory education in this State? Hasn't the truant officer been to see you?" Mrs. Snawdor looked self-conscious and cast down her eyes. "Well, not as many times as Snawdor says he has. Snawdor's that jealous he don't want me to have no gentlemen visitors. When I see the truant officer or the clock-man comin', I just keep out of sight to avoid trouble." The judge's eyes twinkled, then grew stern. "In the meanwhile," he said, "Nancy is growing up in ignorance. What sort of a woman are you to let a child go as ragged and dirty as this one and to refuse her an education?" "Well, schools ain't what they wuz when me an' you wuz young," Mrs. Snawdor said argumentatively. "They no more'n git a child there than they want to cut out their palets or put spectacles on her. But honest, Judge, the truth of it is I can't spare Nance to go to school. I got a job scrubbin' four nights in the week at the post-office, an' I got to have some help in the daytime. I leave it to you if I ain't."