Miss Aurelia, taking up a tumbler, looked at it reproachfully, then put it down with an air of gentle resignation. "Why, brother, of course I can. Do I ever do anything else?" The smoky, soft eyes had an air of surprise and inquiry. "When you think of all the questions that are asked me in the house and the pains that I am put to in order to answer them fully and plainly--that is"--Miss Aurelia caught her brother's eye--"if I understand, or they, you--I--er--why do you ask?" The magistrate, now being sure of deceit and evasion in the stammering lady opposite, played what was usually a very strong card with her. In fact, the Judge almost loved Miss Aurelia because she was the only person of his household who regarded this as a strong card. With an air of majesty, a thing that in his young days he had practised until he believed in it, a thing that would have made him a marvelous model for a moving-picture photographer, he brought down his fist until the lunch table rattled. Miss Aurelia, well trained in her part, jumped. It was the thing to do. Dora, bringing in the custards, looked nervous, quite proper of Dora. The hard-boiled eyes seeing all this took on a curious top film of complacency. The Judge leaned forward. "Now, if you can speak the truth," the Judge shook impressively that thick forefinger which had so long been unwittingly the little coffin nail of dead oratory, "if you are capable of speaking the truth, where are the girls? Did they ask your permission to go? Did they take the depot car without my permission? Did they ask that sneak Colter to go with them, also without my permission?" The curious something that sleeps in the frailest and feeblest woman now rose in Miss Aurelia. She seized a pepper-pot and violently shook it. "Stopped up again," said she with a sepulchral voice. The lady faced her magistrate brother. "I'm sure you have no right to address me as if I were a shoplifter, for I presume that is the way you do address shoplifters, though it is true that I might be, that is, that you, anyone, might be a shoplifter." Suddenly the poor lady paused, for the hard-boiled gooseberry eyes, steadily fixed upon her, at last had their wonted effect. Miss Aurelia felt guilty, and that was what the Judge wanted. It was his great pride that he could make anyone feel guilty; he exulted. "They've gone off somewhere," burst out Miss Aurelia defiantly. "Why didn't you ask me before? I'm sure you can't see anything wrong in that. Dunstan had gone with--with some other girls. I presume Sard and Minga have joined them. Dora and Maggie say that Colter drove them in the depot car."