"Just the same, I shall," whispered Minga doggedly. "I'm going with Dunce." Then a thought struck her. "Oh, Sard, did Dunce tell you what Judgie is going to do to Colter?" The other girl started. "Do to Colter!" Sard paused at the door, her face scared inquiry through the dawn-light. "Well," Minga was sleepily yawning, "I think Dunce said that Judgie had heard some of all this mess and so he had told Colter to get out. He seems to think it doesn't do to have a gentleman--well, you know what I mean, for a hired man, anyway." Minga, seeing her friend's face, was a little nervous. "That's what Dunce said; you'd better ask him. Imagine!" said little heavy-eyed Minga. "Imagine!" Something slow, defined, inevitable crept around Sard's heart, with a shiver; the girl tried to face it, tried with her ardent and alert soul to know it for what it was. It was hate, and it was hate of her father. She trembled slightly, for as she looked into her heart and saw that dark shape of Hate lying at its door, she heard a soft whisper again in her ear; little curls tickled her ears, soft whispering came to her and her head was laid on a soft pulsating little breast. "We aren't afraid of Foddy, little Sard; we love him; he won't put us in prison." Softly closing the door, softly stumbling up the steps to the tower-room, the girl tried to put these things against that dark shape lying across the threshold of her heart. "Oh, but he has put me in prison," she sobbed, "he _has_ put me in prison--I--I--could never make him understand." Sard threw herself face downward on her bed. The birds were all singing, the sun came with bright morning over the happy sparkle of the river. A girl lay tearless before the dark shape of hate and the memory of love and before a slow dawning of a new feeling she could not name, the old cry came: "Oh, Mother!" whispered Sard. "Oh, Mother! _Mother!_" CHAPTER XIX OLD LETTERS The week before Terence O'Brien's trial Watts had gone for one of his rare visits to Eleanor Ledyard's home in its low valley of the Ramapos. He found Pudge's home a tangle of lovely flowers, rich in smears of gaudy color, and the long waves of canterbury bells bowed to him in many tints as he paused at the white gate. Pudge, himself, ran down the paved garden path, a small turtle in one hand, a little willow whistle in the other. Both of these were proudly exhibited to his friend; also, mysterious news, the guinea pigs had now several little guinea pigs of their own and the doings of these piebald sacks of fur and ears were rehearsed. Watts listened with interest. "Mother's up in the garret," said Pudge. "She's looking at letters--they make her cry." Watts frowned. "They do, do they?" "Yes, some more," the little fellow heaved a great sigh and took hold of Watts' trouser leg. "I'm glad you've come; when you come Mother doesn't cry as much; sometimes she looks in the glass and smiles."