"A workin' gurl what brags of havin' a goold watch wid a dimon' in the back, an' a locket wid pearls an' two goold rings, wan of 'em wid a foine blue stone in it, ain't honest, I sh'd say." "Did Jane----?" "I seen 'em wid me own eyes," affirmed Miss MacGrotty dramatically. "'Where did you git the loikes o' thim?' I says to 'er. 'They wuz giv to me,' she says, 'in me last place,' she says." "Dear, dear!" repeated Mrs. Belknap. Then she straightened her trim figure. "You may go now, Mary; I shall be obliged to talk with Jane, and with Mr. Belknap, too. I don't wish to be unjust." "You'd better talk to Mr. Everett, mum, whilst you're talkin'!" said Mary, with artful emphasis. "Sure, an' he's too foine a gintleman entirely to----" "You may go to your work at once, Mary," repeated Mrs. Belknap sternly. "I will tell you to-morrow what I have decided to do." Nevertheless the last barbed arrow had found its mark in Mrs. Belknap's agitated bosom. "I wonder if Jack--could--" she murmured, her mind running rapidly back over the past weeks. He had taken the girl's part masterfully in the few half-laughing discussions which had taken place concerning the romantic fortunes of Jane. "She is a lady, sis," he had declared stoutly, "and you ought to treat her like one." "Impossible!" she thought. Of course there couldn't be such a thing in America as the rigid class distinctions of England; still, an _Everett_ could hardly be seriously attracted by a _servant_. It was, she decided, merely another case of dear old Jack's overflowing goodness and kindness of heart--a heart which seemed big enough to harbor and warm the whole world of forlorn humanity. It was, in short, "the Everett way." Margaret Belknap recalled her father's beautiful courtesy which had exhibited itself alike to the washerwoman and the wife of the millionaire. All women were sacred in the eyes of the Everett men. And a poor, sick, helpless or downtrodden woman was the object of their keenest solicitude. Why, Jack, she remembered, had on one occasion carried Mrs. Whittaker's little girl through the mud and rain for a full block, with that melancholy personage following close at his heels, delivering fulsome panegyrics on his goodness. "And there wasn't a bit of use of it, either; the child could have walked perfectly well," Mrs. Belknap reminded herself. Jack was the dearest boy in the world--except Jimmy; but, of course, he was _absurd_--sometimes. All men were. It was her manifest duty to see to it that no appealingly helpless female succeeded in attaching him to her perpetual and sworn service. It was her duty; and she would do it.