s, I'll meet you at the ribbon counter."

"Thank you, thank you ever so much, Miss Eleanor! I'll hurry just as
much as I can, and I certainly won't be long."

Then she was off, and luckily enough she found that the lawyer had not
yet gone. He listened to her suggestion with a smile.

"By George," he said, when she had finished, "maybe you've hit the right
idea, Bessie, at that! I'm afraid I can't manage it today, but I'll take
you to the jail myself in the morning, and see that you get a chance to
talk to him. I doubt if he'll say anything, he's either obstinate or
badly frightened. But it's worth the chance, if you don't mind going to
the jail to see him. It's not a very nice place, you know."

Bessie laughed.

"I'd do worse than that if I thought I could help Zara, Mr. Jamieson,"
she said. "Do you know I've got the strangest feeling that she's in
trouble? It's just as if I could hear her calling me and as if she were
sorry for leaving us, and wanted to be back."

Jamieson smiled grimly.

"I think the chances are that she's feeling just about that way," he
said. "She certainly ought to be--if we're at all near to guessing the
people she's gone with. They won't treat her as well as the Mercers,
I'll be bound."

"That's what I'm afraid of, too," said Bessie.

Then thanking him for his promise she made her way to the street, and
started to go back to the store where she had left Eleanor. But she was
intercepted. And, to her amazement, the person who checked her, as she
was walking swiftly along the crowded street, was Jake Hoover.

"'Lo, Bessie," he said shamefacedly, as she started with surprise at the
sight of him. "Say, you're pretty in them new clothes of your'n. I'd
never 'a' known you."

"I wish you hadn't, then," said Bessie, with spirit. "I'm through with
you, Jake Hoover! You won't have me around home any more, to take the
blame for all your wickedness. When things happen now they'll know whose
fault it is--and maybe they'll begin to think that you may have done
some of the things I used to get punished for, too."

"Aw, now, don't get mad, Bessie," he said, trying to pacify her. "This
here's the city--'tain't Hedgeville! Maybe I was mean to you sometimes
back home, Bessie, but I was jest jokin'. Say, Bess, here's a gentleman
wants to talk to you. He's a lawyer an' a mighty smart man. An' he
thinks he knows somethin' about your father and mother."

Another figure had loomed up beside that of Jake, a