"Judge Trent," she began emphatically, fixing him with eyes which he but now perceived were swollen, "don't think to hurry me. I've come here on serious business. Men call you an eminent lawyer, a brilliant man. Now we'll see if you are sufficiently able to save your only sister's only child from an awful future." Miss Lacey paused with working lips. Judge Trent perceived that she was deeply moved, and not endeavoring to make the most of an enjoyable situation. He pushed up his spectacles and looked questioningly at Dunham. "You wouldn't come," pursued Miss Martha accusingly; "you wouldn't help me." "I sent Dunham with full power." "What could he do?" retorted Miss Lacey, in grief. "A mere boy like him, and no relation. Of course, after I had made a complete mess of it, what was left for him to do when she turned us out, but to come back with me?" "You told me to follow Miss Lacey's lead," stated Dunham. "Your place was there, Calvin. You might have saved the day even after my blunder." "Perhaps you will tell me what blunder." "Why, she was in the parlor curtains, Sylvia was, when we went in," Martha's voice trembled, "and I don't suppose, to be fair, that she thought of eavesdropping." "No," put in Dunham feelingly, "I've no doubt she was watching for you; and I can imagine how eager and--and different her face looked then." His reminiscent tone was earnest, and his employer regarded him with sudden sharpness. "So she's pretty," he said dryly. "Oh, indeed she is--or would be if she was painted up the way they do," groaned Miss Martha. "She's too pale--but that might have been all anger." "No," said Dunham quickly, "she's had typhoid fever." Miss Lacey stared at him. "How do you know that?" she demanded. "Why--why--of course," stammered John, "her short curly hair meant that. Didn't you think of it at once?" "That's an absurd conclusion," returned Miss Martha, while Judge Trent quietly regarded the young man's flushing countenance. "But if it should be true, Calvin," continued the lady miserably, "she's not fit yet to go to work at anything! I haven't told you yet. I talked right out to Mr. Dunham in that parlor about our not wanting her, you and I; and how we wished she'd stayed West. Oh, I've gone over it dozens of times since, and it keeps growing worse. Every word I said was true, and it was perfectly compatible with our intention to help her all the time; but she couldn't realize that, and I was just sort of explaining to Mr. Dunham your coolness in the matter by telling him how miserable Sam made Laura when the girl jumped out of those curtains like a--like a perfect fury, didn't she, Mr. Dunham?" He nodded. "She seemed at a white heat with righteous indignation," he agreed. Miss Martha took up the tale.