you. . . . Well, perhaps you can advise me,
at least you can suggest--or--or--help me to think. Will you?"

Jed passed his hand across his chin. It was obvious that her
asking his counsel was simply a last resort, a desperate, forlorn
hope. She had no real confidence in his ability to help. He would
have been the last to blame her for this; her estimate of his
capabilities was like his own, that was all.

"W-e-e-ll," he observed, slowly, "as to givin' my advice, when a
man's asked to give away somethin' that's worth nothin' the least
he can do is say yes and try to look generous, I cal'late. If I
can advise you any, why, I'll feel proud, of course."

"Thank you. Mr. Winslow, for the past two years or more I have
been in great trouble. I have a brother--but you knew that; Babbie
told you."

"Um-hm. The one she calls 'Uncle Charlie'?"

"Yes. He is--he is serving his sentence in the Connecticut State
Prison."

Jed leaned back upon the box. His head struck smartly against the
edge of the bandsaw bench, but he did not seem to be aware of the
fact.

"My Lord above!" he gasped.

"Yes, it is true. Surely you must have guessed something of that
sort, after Babbie's story of the policemen."

"I--I--well, I did sort of--of presume likely he must have got into
some sort of--of difficulty, but I never thought 'twas bad as
that. . . . Dear me! . . . Dear me!"

"My brother is younger than I; he is scarcely twenty-three years
old. He and I are orphans. Our home was in Wisconsin. Father was
killed in a railway accident and Mother and my brother Charles and
I were left with very little money. We were in a university town
and Mother took a few students as lodgers. Doctor Armstrong was
one; I met him there, and before he left the medical college we
were engaged to be married. Charlie was only a boy then, of
course. Mother died three years later. Meanwhile Seymour--Doctor
Armstrong--had located in Middleford, Connecticut, and was
practicing medicine there. He came on, we were married, and I
returned to Middleford with him. We had been married but a few
years when he died--of pneumonia. That was the year after Babbie
was born. Charles remained in Wisconsin, boarding with a cousin of
Mother's, and, after he graduated from high school, entered one of
the banks in the town. He was very successful there and the bank
people liked him. After Seymour--my husband--died, he came East to
see me at Middleford.