ppy while she could be by my side and in my arms. Oh, I lived whole
lives over and over again with Virginia that lonely winter. She had
been such a dear little creature. I had been able to do so much for her
in getting her away from what she thought a great danger. She had done
so much for me, too. Had not she and I cried together over the memory of
my mother? Had she not been my intimate companion for weeks, cooked for
me, planned for me, advised me, dreamed with me? It was not nearly so
lonely as you might think, in one sense of the word.

And now I had not seen her for such a long time that I wondered if she
were not forgetting me. No wonder that I was a little flighty, as I
crowded myself into my poor best suit which I was so rapidly outgrowing,
and walked into Monterey Centre in time to be Judge Horace Stone's
body-guard the night of the party--I heard it called a reception--at
Governor DeWitt Clinton Wade's new Gothic house, over in Benton Township
that was to be.

I was proportionately miserable when I called at Elder Thorndyke's, to
find that Virginia was not ready to see me, and that Grandma Thorndyke
seemed cool and somehow different toward me. When she left me, I slipped
out and went to Stone's.

"Thought you wasn't coming, Jake," said he. "Almost give you up. Just
time for you to get a bite to eat before we start."

3

When we did start, his wife came out in a new black silk dress--for the
Stones were quality--and was helped into the back seat, and the judge
came out of the house carrying a satchel which when he handed it to me I
found to be very heavy. I should say, as I have often stated, that it
weighed about fifty to sixty pounds, and when he shoved it back under
the seat before sitting down, it gave as I seemed to remember afterward
a sort of muffled jingle.

"The treasures of Golconda, or Goldarnit," said he, "or some of those
foreign places. Hear 'em jingle? Protect them with your life, Jake."

"All right," I said, as glum as you please; for he had left the only
vacant place in the carriage back with Mrs. Stone. This was no way to
treat me! But I was almost glad when Virginia came out to the carriage
wearing a pink silk dress, and looking so fearful to the eyes of her
obscure adorer that he could scarcely speak to her--she was so
unutterably lovely and angelic-looking.

"How do you do, Teunis!" said she, and paused for some one to help her
in. Judge Stone waited a moment, and gave her a boost