"They say there's queer blood in the family, and I guess he's got his share," Judge Emery summed up and dismissed the case with a gesture of finality. He glanced up at a tall clock standing in the corner, compared its time with his watch, exclaimed impatiently, "Slow again!" and addressed himself with a householder's seriousness to setting it right. A new aspect of the matter they had been discussing struck Lydia. "But what does he--what do people do about him?" she asked. This misty inquiry was as intelligible to her mother as a cipher to the holders of a key. "Oh, he's very nice about that. He has dropped out of society completely and keeps out of everybody's way. Of course you see him when he comes to set up a piece of his furniture or to take an order, but that's all. And he used to be so popular!" The regret in the last clause was that of a thrifty person before waste of any kind. "I understand he still goes to Dr. Melton's a good deal, but that just counts him in as one of the doctor's collection of freaks; it doesn't mean anything. You know how your godfather goes on about--" She broke off to look out the window. "Oh, Lydia! your trunks are here. Quick! where are your keys? It seems as though I couldn't wait to see your dresses!" She hurried to the door and vanished. Lydia did not stir for a moment. She was looking down at the table, absorbed in watching the dim reflections of her pink finger-tips as she pressed them one after another upon the dark polished wood. Her father opened the door of the clock with a little click, but she did not heed it. She drew her hand away from the table and inspected her finger-tips intently, as though to detect some change in them. When her father closed the clock-door and turned away she started, as though she had forgotten his presence. Her gaze upon him gave him an odd feeling of wonder, which he took to be apologetic realization that he had spent a longer time oblivious of her than he had meant. His explanation had a little compunction in it. "I have a time with that pendulum always. I can't seem to get it the right length!" Lydia continued to look at him blankly for a moment. Then she drew a long breath and took an aimless step away from the table. "Well, if that isn't too queer for anything!" she exclaimed. Judge Emery stared. "Why, no; it's quite common in pendulum clocks," he told her. CHAPTER IV THE DAWN