erences to
herself.

"What is iron?" she asked. "Tell me why you wanted to make iron! If I
can enter into your mind and sympathize with the hopes you have had, it
will lift my soul from the ground. Papa, I should have asked for this
lesson long ago."

The Judge strode up and down till she repeated the question, and had
brought him to his seat. He collected his thoughts, and resumed his
worldly tone as he proceeded, with his old cavalier volatility, to tell
the tale of iron.

"I have duplicated loans," he said at last, "on the same properties,
incurring, I fear, a stigma upon my family and character; as well as the
ruin of our fortune."

Vesta arose with pale lips and a sinking heart.

"Oh, father," she whispered, in a frightened tone, "who knows this
terrible secret!"

"Only one man," said the Judge, cowering down to the carpet, with his
courage and volatility immediately gone, "old Meshach Milburn knows it
all! He has purchased the duplicate notes of protest, and holds them
with his own. He has me in his power, and hates me. He will expose me,
unless I submit to an awful condition."

"What is it, father?"

The Judge looked up in terror, and, meeting Vesta's pale but steady
gaze, hid his face and groaned:

"Oh! it is too disgraceful to tell. It will break your mother's heart."

"Tell me at once!" exclaimed Vesta, in a low and hollow tone. "What
further disgrace can this monster inflict upon us than to expose our
dishonor? Can he kill us more than that?"

"I know not how to tell you, Vessy. Spare me, my darling! My face I hide
for shame."

There was a pause, while Vesta, with her mind expanded to touch every
point of suggestion, stood looking down at her father, yet hardly seeing
him. He did not move.

Vesta stooped and raised her father's face to find some solution of his
mysterious evasion. He shut his eyes as if she burned him with her
wondering look.

"Papa, look at me this instant! You shall not be a coward to me."

He broke from her hands and retreated to a window, looking at her, but
with a timorous countenance.

"I wish you to go this moment and find your creditor, Mr. Milburn, and
bring him to me. You must obey me, sir!"

The father raised his hands as if to protest, but before he could speak
a shadow fell upon the window, and the figure of a small, swarthy man
covered with a steeple-crowned hat advanced up the front steps.

"Saviour, have mercy!" murmured Judge Custis, "the wolf is at t