k her reputation, which she seems to guard
with almost morbid sensitiveness on account of her daughter. She has
been warned of the dangerous consequences of a suit, but if forced to
extremities will hazard it; hence I bide my time."

He threw back his lordly head, and his brilliant eyes seemed to
dilate, as though the suggestion of the suit stirred his pulse, as
the breath of carnage and the din of distant battle that of the
war-horse, panting for the onward dash.

A species of human petrel,--a juridic _Procellaria Pelagica_
whose _habitat_ was the court-house,--Erle Palma lived amid the
ceaseless surges of litigation, watching the signs of rising tempests
in human hearts, plunging in defiant exultation where the billows
rode highest, never so elated as when borne triumphantly upon the
towering crest of some conquering wave of legal _finesse_, or
impassioned invective, and rarely saddened in the flush of victory by
the pale spectres of strangled hope, fortune, or reputation which
float in the _debris_ of the wrecks that almost every day drift
mournfully away from the precincts of courts of justice.

The striking of the clock caused him to draw out his watch and
compare the time.

"I believe the regular train does not leave V---- until night, but
the conductor told me I might catch an excursion train bound south,
and due here about half-past one o'clock. It is necessary for me to
return with as little delay as possible, and after I have spoken to
Regina I must hasten to the depot You will find my address pencilled
on the card, and I presume Mrs. Orme has given you hers. Should you
desire to confer with me at any time relative to the child, I shall
promptly respond to your letters, but have no leisure to spend in
looking after her. The semiannual remittance shall not be neglected,
and Regina has a package for you containing money for contingent
expenses."

They entered the hall, and found the little stranger sitting alone on
the lowest step of the stairway, where Mrs. Lindsay had left her,
while she went to prepare luncheon for the travellers. She was very
quiet, bore no visible traces of tears, but the tender lips wore a
piteously sad expression of heroically repressed grief, and the
purlish shadows under her solemn blue eyes rendered them more than
ever--pleadingly beautiful.

As the two gentlemen stood before her she rose, and caught her
breath, pressing one little palm over her heart, while the other
grasped