"How should I know?" She tossed her head. "I never thought about such things, but," suddenly her old manner returned, "you are mistaken about Sard. It is only the under-dog she is interested in. Look at her about Terence O'Brien, and she has never even seen him. She's been interested in under-dogs ever since she came home from college. I never realized it," confessed Miss Aurelia with a nervous cough, "until Dunstan gave her that box at Christmas labeled 'Under-dog Biscuits,' and it had twenty-five dollars in it for Sard to give to tramps." Miss Aurelia, in spite of her perturbation, could not help the slight tremor of a smile, but she sought to propitiate her brother. "Of course," she confessed, "Sard isn't exactly my idea of a lady, not a bit like her mother. But she may grow more like her." The man and woman in the Bogart dining-room instinctively conjured up this possible resemblance to Sard's mother, to the little curls and rows of buttons, the little rings and chains and bracelets, the tiny web of handkerchief and the sweet smell of scented lace over a tightly corseted little bosom. Poor Miss Aurelia, standing timidly back of her brother's chair, tried faithfully to see her niece formed on this pattern and utterly failed. "The girls seem different nowadays. I don't know what it is," she complained, "they take long steps. They are--um--healthier. Don't you know how they shake hands with you as if they said, 'Well, what are you good for?'" Miss Aurelia pondered. "I was so different in my own youth," she sighed; "you remember, brother, I spent much of my time in bed taking medicine." "Well, it kept you a lady, and a fool," snapped Judge Bogart. Now he rose from his luncheon chair with the effect of charging the jury. "You can tell Sard if you don't want me to; my time--my time," emphasized Judge Bogart impressively, "may come later, that she is to drop all association with this Gentleman-John tramp of hers. Make her ashamed. Make her see the vulgarity of the thing. If she rebels, why then----" said Judge Bogart darkly, as he stood there pulling down his lip, looking at his sister. "There's just one thing I won't have," he said emphatically, "a taste for low company. Sard has that." He turned, surveying his relative narrowly. "Even that little poll-parrot Minga has more pride. The girl will have to learn that she's my daughter, not the friend of Tom, Dick and Harry, but my daughter. Tell her that, do you understand, _my daughter_!" The Judge stood staring; he finished in the voice he used so successfully in the court-room. "If she can't take your advice, she'll take my orders." At some thoughts of the girl, clear, steady, the Judge's lower lip snarled. His legs seemed not to hold him up well. He became a curious, insecure mass of anger.