e is _my_ boy, my _own_ boy!"

"I beg pardon, but what do you mean, Miss Julia?"

"I say he's my boy! What I say about that is privileged--it's
professional, Judge Henderson. No one else has heard me say what I am
telling you now. But he _is_ my boy--my love has gone into him, the same
as if I were his mother."

He only stared as she rushed on.

"I know his mother--we have been friends here since we were girls, real
friends. I'm the only friend she's got in this town--and the only fair
and kind thing this town has ever done has been to allow me to be the
friend of Aurora Lane. I suppose that's because I am only the little
lame librarian! I don't count. She doesn't count. But--well, between us
two--we've had a boy!"

He stared, pale, as she went on:

"Between us two, we've brought him up. We've educated him. Between us
two, we have saved our money--it wasn't much--and we've managed to give
him something of an education, something of a life more than he could
have gotten in this town. We have put him through college--we have
given him a profession--we were going to give him a start.

"I say 'we,' and I mean that. But, it isn't the money of mine that went
into him--it's my _love_--it's the _love_ I felt for him! Why, Judge,
I've seen him grow up. I've held him in my two hands, this way, when he
was so little ... oh, very little.... So you see, he's my boy, too!

"And so," she added inconsequently, as he made no answer, "I came to
you." (What the angels understood in Miss Julia's unspoken words then
they did not make plain to the ears of the man who heard them.)

Judge Henderson sat astounded, looking at her steadily, unable to grasp
all the emotion which evidently she felt, unable wholly to understand an
act of clean unselfishness on the part of any human being.

"You see," said Miss Julia tremblingly, after a time--"his father--I
never knew his father. She'd never tell me--I never asked but once. But
you see, I only _fancied_ that he had a father. I fancied I was his
mother. I fancied----" But now Miss Julia's voice failed her, and her
blushes alone spoke.

"I see," said Judge Henderson, not unkindly, and breathing more freely,
"you fancied that you held an undivided interest in this child, this
young man." She did not see his face very plainly, did not catch his
hesitation as he engaged on this touchy theme.

Miss Julia nodded rapidly, swallowing hard. Her face was very beautiful
indeed now. (The angels mus