ching a way out for Eugene, a cause for
putting all the blame on Aunt Jerry.

"I wish I had gone with the Macphersons. I could have forgotten, for a
while at least."

A light step inside the house caught her ear.

"Maybe Laura has come home," she thought, too absorbed in herself to
ask why Laura should have chosen the side door when she knew that Jerry
was alone on the front porch.

Again she heard a movement just inside the open door; then a step on the
threshold; and then a tall, thin woman walked out of the house and
half-way across the wide porch before she caught sight of Jerry in an
easy-chair behind the honeysuckle-vines. The intruder paused a second,
staring at the corner where the girl sat motionless. From her childhood
Jerry had possessed unusual physical courage. To-night it was curiosity,
rather than fright, that prompted her to keep still while the strange
woman's eyes were upon her. Evidently the intruder was more surprised
than herself, and Jerry let her make the first move in the game. The
woman was angular, with swift but ungraceful motion. For a long time, as
such seconds go, she stared at the white figure hidden by the shadows of
the vines. Then with a quick stride she thrust herself before the girl
and dropped into a chair.

"Well, well! This is Miss Swim, ain't it?"

"As well that as anything. I can't land anywhere," Jerry thought.

"I'm Mrs. Stellar Bahrr, a good friend of Laury Macpherson as she's got
in this town, unless it's you. I seen you in York's office this
afternoon. I was sorry I intruded on you two when you come purpose to
see him in his private office. When girls wants to see him that way they
don't want nobody, 'specially women, around."

Mrs. Bahrr paused to giggle and to give Jerry time to parry her thrust,
meanwhile pinning her through with the sharp points of her eyes that
fairly gleamed in the shadow-checkered moonlight of the porch. Jerry was
not accustomed to being accountable to anybody for what she chose to do,
nor did she know that every man in New Eden, except York Macpherson and
Junius Brutus Ponk--and every woman, without exception--really feared
Stella Bahrr, knowing that she would hesitate at no kind of warfare to
accomplish her purpose. It is generally easier to be decent than to be
courageous, and peace at any price may be more desired than nasty word
battles. Not knowing Stella for the woman she was, Jerry had no mind to
consider her at all, so she waited for