"He has not usually had that reputation," she returned, dropping the words slowly, one by one. "I know," he said indignantly. "Of course I've no right to tell it, because he has always insisted that I should not. But I'd like you, at least, to know, and it can't do any harm to tell you now. He has supported not only aunt Pamela, but Frank and me; and of course, with two of us in college, it has been a hard pull on him." "But I should think," she began, "that"-- "That we wouldn't have let him?" Hazard said as she hesitated. "I wonder--I've always wondered that we did. But he insisted, and said we could pay him back when we got our professions; and so we shall, of course." Patty was silent. She was filled with self-reproach for having misjudged the lawyer. Why, from all her suitors, her heart had chosen this elderly-looking man, his hair already threaded with gray, she could have told as little as any one else. Love as a rule is so illogical, that it is strange the ancients did not give the little god the female sex; though it is true they approximated toward it by representing him eternally blindfold. Something in Patty had instinctively recognized the innate nobility of Mr. Putnam's character, hidden beneath a somewhat cold exterior. Against the fascination which his personality exercised over her, she struggled as a strong will always struggles against the dominion of a stronger. She could not easily yield herself up, and often treated the lawyer with less tenderness, or even courtesy, than the rest of her suitors. At the revelations of Hazard, however, she was much softened; and had Tom Putnam been at hand--but he was not; and it is idle to speculate upon chances, albeit the whole world is poised upon an IF, as a rocking-stone upon its pivot. CHAPTER IX. AN ARRIVAL. The silence of the pair upon the piazza was broken by the arrival at the gate of Will, who had been to the station to meet grandmother Sanford. Patty started up as if to run to meet her, but fell back. "I forget that I am a cripple," she said. "Mother, how do you do?" exclaimed Mrs. Sanford, appearing in the doorway. "Do come up on to the piazza. I don't want to meet you on the stairs, or I'll have a disappointment." "Thee art as full of foolish superstitions as ever, daughter Britann," the old lady said, coming slowly up the steps on Will's arm. "You dear little grandmother!" Patty cried. "How glad I am you've come!" "I am glad to come," her grandmother answered, "and grieved much to find thee lame. How dost thee do to-day?" "Oh! I'm nicely. My ankle isn't painful at all. It would have been well if I could have kept still. This is Hazard Breck, grandmother, Mr. Putnam's nephew; you remember him.--And this, Hazard, is the nicest grandmother that ever lived." "Thee art the nephew of an honest man," the old lady said, "though he is somewhat given to irreverent speech." "He is the best of uncles, at least," Hazard answered warmly.