“Outrageous!” came from Brad. “I sent for a piece of property belonging to my daughter and you declined to return it,” said the woman, with a crushing air of superiority. “So it was you who sent for it?” came quickly from Dick. “I am glad to know that.” “My daughter wrote the note, which I sent by a messenger. Your refusal to return the locket makes you a thief. But I presume you have come to your senses and decided to give it up, in which case I shall not proceed against you.” Dick was boiling with anger, and he longed to tell the woman just what he thought; but he could not forget that she was June’s mother, which held him in check. “I did not call to return the locket, madam,” he said. “I had another matter that brought me here.” “Indeed?” said the woman, annoyed and surprised. “You will find it best to attend to this matter without delay if you wish to escape the unpleasantness of being arrested. To a boy of your callous nature I do not suppose arrest would seem like a disgrace, but you may fear imprisonment.” Dick could not find words to retort to this insult, but he knew he could not restrain his outraged feelings much longer, for which reason he sought to pass the woman at once and get away from her. But Mrs. Arlington had not played all her cards. She was holding one in reserve. “I think you were somehow concerned in stopping a horse that had become frightened in a neighboring town, and I also think my daughter was in the carriage,” she said, in the same haughty, freezing manner. “Much to my regret, I have learned that my son failed to pay you for your act, as he promised to do; but you know he was injured by falling from the carriage, which explains his failure. I have been told that he said he would give you a hundred dollars to stop the horse. I always take pains to have my son keep his word, and I shall do so in this case. When you call with the locket you shall have the hundred dollars, just as he promised.” Dick knew she felt sure the promise of that money would cause him to hasten to bring the locket, and it but added to his outraged sense of fairness. Surely she was the most overbearing, haughty, cold-blooded woman he had ever met! But she was June’s mother! “Madam,” he said, “if you imagine for a moment that I stopped that horse because a hundred dollars was offered to any one who would do so, you have made a great mistake. I did so because your daughter was in peril. Nothing could induce me to accept money from your son, from you, or from any one on earth for such an act!” He managed to pass her, but Buckhart paused to say: “Well, I should opine not! Why, confound it! I told you once that this yere pard of mine has money enough to buy up your old husband’s railroads and run ’em! Money! Why, when he comes of age he’ll have it to burn in an open grate instead of coal! Money! Don’t insult him by——” “Brad!” said Dick sharply; “that will do! Come!”