t have smiled with tears in their eyes as
they looked down upon her now and saw how pathetically beautiful she
was!)

"And that interest is still undivided?"

"Yes, we've not seen each other very much, Aurora and I, today, because
things have been traveling so fast, but we are--we are partners in this
trouble, as in everything else. We've got to have a lawyer, of course.
There's not much money left between us--even my next month's salary is
pledged. It cost more than we thought to get him through the graduation.
There were clothes, you know--many things." And now she flushed again
vividly. She was thinking of Don's little clothes, which once long ago
she had helped to sew; and the angels knew this, gravely.

"He's a _splendid_ young man, our boy!" she broke out again at length.
"Can't you see that? Good in his classes--and an athlete--a splendid
one. He's such a gentleman in all his ways, Judge Henderson, a son
worthy of a father, of some good father, if only he had one! His father
died, you know, when Don was just a baby." She was not looking at him
now, not daring, as she went on.

"But you see, we are in trouble about him. That may come to anyone. Why,
even you yourself, Judge Henderson, successful as you are--some time
even you may know such a thing as trouble. It is the common human lot.
And I have been told enough----"

"If I were in trouble," said Judge Henderson gallantly, and with a push
of a full ounce of Monongahela back of his words, "I would go to just
some such woman as you for help. But women don't seem to see any of the
intervening obstacles that exist, do they, Miss Julia?"

"If we did, the world would stop," said Miss Julia, simply. And spoke a
great truth.

"None the less there are obstacles," said he, after a time. "I fear
there are insuperable ones, my dear." ("He called me 'My dear!'" wrote
Miss Julia in her diary.)

"Why, not at all! I can't believe that, Judge. We'll manage it all in
some way, Aurora and I. And, naturally we come to you as our
champion--who should help us if not you yourself? Do I say too much,
Judge Henderson?" she inquired timidly.

"No, not too much," said he with much modesty, "not too much, I trust. I
hope I have always had, at every stage of my own career, the confidence
of all my friends in this community."

There was a little pause. "But also, Miss Julia," he continued, raising
a hand, "wait a minute--wait a minute. In order to deserve the
confidence of all m