ibbling information
as to the nice effects in the Water-Color Exhibition, or miraculous "finds"
of Spode or Wedgwood in old junk-shops, or the most authentic information
as to why the Palfreys had no cards to Mrs. Livingstone's kettledrums,
while Jane listened with a quizzical gleam in her eyes, as she did to the
little bantam hen outside cackling and strutting over its new egg.

"We must have you in society this winter," he urged. "It is a duty you owe
in your position. You have no choice about it."

"You are right, Mr. Waring," called the captain from the corner where he
sat with Judge Rhodes. "The child must have friends in her own class." He
dropped his voice again: "The truth is, Rhodes, she has no ties like other
girls. Her dog and two or three old women and some children--that is all
she knows of life. It's enough while she has me. But I shall not be here
long, now. Not many months."

The eyes of the two men met.

"Does she know?" asked the judge after a while.

"No." The captain's gaunt features worked: he trotted his foot to some
tune, looking down from the window and whistling under his breath. "It was
for this I sent for you," he added presently. "If I could only see her
settled, married, before I go! She is no more fit to be left alone in the
world than Bruno."

The judge shook his head in gloomy assent. His own opinion was that Jane
would follow her own instincts in a dog-like fashion if her father was out
of the way, and God only knew where they would lead her! He had brought his
own girls, Rose and Netty, with him to visit her, in order that she might
have a domestic feminine influence upon her. They found, accidentally, that
she did not know a word of any catechism, and, terrified, loaned her
religious novels to convert her: she took them graciously, but never cut
the leaves. There were to them even more heathenish indications in her
hoopless straight skirts: the good little creatures zealously cut and
trimmed a dress for her from the very last patterns. She put it on, and
straightway went through bog and brake with Bruno for mushrooms, coming
back with it in tatters. They chattered in their thin falsetto voices the
last Culpepper gossip into her patient ear--the story of Rosey's balls at
Old Point, and Netty's lovers, all of whom were "splendid matches until
impohverished by the war." She listened to their chirping with amused eyes,
tapping them, when they were through, approvingly on the head as t