hat remains. Julia drew a sharp quick
breath, and was just about to become unconscious. Humphreys stretched
his arms to catch her, but the sudden recollection that in case she
fainted he would carry her into the house, produced a reaction. She
released herself from his grasp, and hurried in alone, locking her door,
and refusing admittance to her mother. From Humphreys, who had put
himself into a delicate minor key, Mrs. Anderson got such an account of
the conversation as he thought best to give. She then opened and read a
note placed into her hand by a neighbor as she came out from meeting. It
was addressed to Julia, and ran:

"If all they say is true, you have quickly changed. I do not hold you by
any promises you wish to break.

"AUGUST WEHLE."

Mrs. Anderson had no pity. She hesitated not an instant. Julia's door
was fast. But she went out upon the front upper porch, and pushing up
the window of her daughter's room as remorselessly as she had committed
the burglary on her private letter, she looked at her a moment, sobbing
on the bed, and then threw the letter into the room, saying: "It's good
for you. Read that, and see what a fellow your Dutchman is."

Then Mrs. Anderson sought her couch, and slept with a serene sense, of
having done _her_ duty as a mother, whatever might be the result.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE SPIDER SPINS.

Julia got up from her bed the moment that her mother had gone. Her first
feeling was that her privacy had been shamefully outraged. A true mother
should honorably respect the reserve of the little child. But Julia was
now a woman, grown, with a woman's spirit. She rose from her bed, and
shut her window with a bang that was meant to be a protest. She then put
the tenpenny nail sometimes used to fasten the window down, in its
place, as if to say, "Come in, if you can." Then she pulled out the
folds of the chintz curtain, hanging on its draw-string half-way up the
window. If there had been any other precaution possible, she would have
taken it. But there was not.

She took up the note, and read it. Julia was not a girl of keen
penetration. Her training was that of a country life. She did not read
between the lines of August's note, and could only understand that she
was dismissed. Outraged by her mother's tyranny, spurned by her lover,
she stood like a hunted creature, brought to bay, looking for the last
desperate chance for escape.

Crushed? No. If she had been weaker, if she had been