"Oh, sir," she cried with an odd mixture of eagerness and restraint, "I have been wanting to talk to you, and if you would be so good as to let me say what is on my mind, it would be a great satisfaction to me, please, and make me feel a deal easier." "I should be very glad to hear whatever you may have to tell me," was his natural response. "Are you in trouble? Can I help you?" "Oh, it is not that," she answered, looking about to see if any curious persons were peering at them through the neighboring window-blinds, "though I have my troubles, of course, as who hasn't in this hard, rough world; it is not of myself I want to speak, but of the young ladies. You take an interest in them, sir?" It was naturally put, yet it made his cheek glow. "I am their lawyer," he murmured. "I thought so," she went on as if she had not seen the evidences of emotion on his part, or if she had seen them had failed to interpret them. "Mr. Hamilton is a very good man but he is not of much use, sir; but you look different, as if you could influence them, and make them do as other people do, and enjoy the world, and go out to church, and see the neighbors, and be natural in short." "And they do not?" "Never, sir; haven't you heard? They never either of them set foot beyond the garden gate. Miss Emma enjoys the flower-beds and spends most of her time working at them or walking up and down between the poplars, but Miss Hermione keeps to the house and grows white and thin, studying and reading, and making herself wise--for what? No one comes to see them--that is, not often, sir, and when they do, they are stiff and formal, as if the air of the house was chilly with something nobody understood. It isn't right, and it's going against God's laws, for they are both well and able to go about the world as others do. Why, then, don't they do it? That is what I want to know." "And that is what everybody wants to know," returned Frank, smiling; "but as long as the young ladies do not care to explain themselves I do not see how you or any one else can criticise their conduct. They must have good reasons for their seclusion or they would never deny themselves all the pleasures natural to youth." "Reasons? What reasons can they have for actions so extraordinary? I don't know of any reason on God's earth which would keep me tied to the house, if my feet were able to travel and my eyes to see." "Do you live with them?" "Yes; or how could they get the necessaries of life? I do their marketing, go for the doctor when they are sick, pay their bills, and buy their dresses. That's why their frocks are no prettier," she explained. Frank felt his wonder increase. "It is certainly a great mystery," he acknowledged. "I have heard of elderly women showing their eccentricity in this way, but young girls!" "And such beautiful girls! Do you not think them beautiful?" she asked.