y wondered why Bart should go away; and wouldn't he be there that
night? They seemed to assume that everything would be a matter of
course, only he behaved very badly in going off when he must know he
was most wanted. Of course he would come back, and Julia would forgive
him; and something they hinted of this. Kate and Ann, and sweet Pearly
Burnett, who had just come home from school, and was entitled to
rank next after Julia, with Nell and Kate, were very gushing on the
subject.

Others took Bart to account. His sudden and mysterious flight was very
much against him, and his reputation was at a sudden ebb. Why did he
go? Then Greer's name was mentioned, and Brown, and New Orleans; and
it was talked over that night at Markham's with ominous mystery, and
one wouldn't wonder if Bart had not gone to Jefferson, at all--that
was a dodge; and another said that at Painesville he stopped and went
west to Cleveland; or to Fairport, and took a steamer; and Greer went
off about the same time.

Julia caught these whispers and pondered them, and the Judge looked
grave over them.

In the morning Julia asked him what it all meant. She remembered that
he had spoken of Bart in connection with Greer, when he came home from
the Cole trial, which made her uneasy; she now wanted to know what it
meant.

The Judge replied that there was a rumor that Bart was an associate
of Greer, and engaged with him. "In what?" He didn't know; he was
a supposed agent of Brown's, and a company. "What were they doing?"
Nobody knew; but it was grossly unlawful and immoral. "Did anybody
believe this of Bart?" He didn't know; things looked suspicious. "Do
you suspect Bart of anything wrong?" He did not; but people talked and
men must be prudent. "Be prudent, when his name is assailed, and he
absent, and no brother to defend him?" "Why did he go?" asked the
Judge, "and where did he go?"

"Father!"

"I don't suspect anything wrong of him, and yet the temptation to this
thing might be great."

Julia asked no more.

The next morning she said that she had long promised Sarah King to pay
her a visit, and she thought she would go for two or three days. Sarah
had just been to Pittsburg, and had seen Miss Walters, and she wanted
so much to hear from her. This announcement quite settled it. She
had recently taken the possession of herself, in a certain sweet
determined way, and was inclined to act on her own judgment, or
caprice. She would go down in the stage