icular waste-paper
baskets. This was discouraging and baffling. To quote the Judge himself,
no one knew anything about Hamlin County, and certainly no one was
disturbed by any desire to be told about it.

That night Rutherford went to the house near Dupont Circle. Big Tom was
sitting in the porch with Rupert and Sheba. Uncle Matt was digging about
the roots of a rose-bush, and the Judge caught a glimpse of Miss Burford
looking out from behind the parlour curtains.

The Judge wore a wearied and vaguely bewildered look as he sat down and
wiped his forehead with a large, clean white handkerchief.

"It's all different from what I thought--it's all different," he said.

"Things often are," remarked Tom, "oftener than not."

Rupert and Sheba glanced at each other questioningly and listened with
anxious eyes.

"And it's different in a different way from what I expected," the Judge
went on. "They might have said and done a dozen things I should have been
sort of ready for, but they didn't. Somehow it seemed as if--as if the
whole thing didn't matter."

Tom got up and began to walk about.

"That's not the way things begin that are going to rush through," he
said.

Sheba followed him and slipped her hand through his arm.

"Do you think," she faltered, "that perhaps we shall not get the money at
all, Uncle Tom?"

Tom folded her hand in his--which was easily done.

"I'm afraid that if we do get it," he answered, "it will not come to us
before we want it pretty badly--the Lord knows how badly."

For every day counts in the expenditure of a limited sum, and on days of
discouragement Tom's calculation of their resources left him a troubled
man.

When Judge Rutherford had gone Rupert sat with Sheba in the scented
summer darkness. He drew his chair opposite to hers and took one of her
hands in both of his own.

"Suppose I have done a wrong thing," he said. "Suppose I have dragged you
and Uncle Tom into trouble?"

"I am glad you came," in a quick, soft voice. "I am glad you came." And
the slight, warm fingers closed round his.

He lifted them to his lips and kissed them over and over again. "Are you
glad I came?" he murmured. "Oh, Sheba! Sheba!"

"Why do you say 'Oh, Sheba'?" she asked.

"Because I love you so--and I am so young--and I don't know what to do.
You know I love you, don't you?"

She leaned forward so that he saw her lovely gazelle eyes lifted and most
innocently tender. "I want you to love me," she