"I have heard people say that I have a glimmering notion of her merits,"
said the other with a humorous gravity.

"Oh, I don't mean pretty, and appealing, and with a good complexion, and
all that--and I don't mean you don't spoil her most outrageously. I mean
she's got the oddest make-up for a modern American girl--she's simple."

"I don't see anything odd about her--or simple!" Her father resented the
adjectives with some warmth.

Dr. Melton answered with his usual free-handed use of language: "Well,
it's because, like everybody else old and spoiled and stodgy and
settled, you've no eyes in your head when it comes to something
important, like young people. Because they're all smooth and rosy you
think they're all alike." He rushed on, delivering himself as always
with restless vivacity of gesture, "I tell you youth is one of the most
wastefully ignored forces in the world! Talk about our neglecting to get
the good out of our water-power! The way we shut off the capacity of
youth to see things as they are, before it gets purblind with our own
cowardly unreason--why, it's as if we tried to make water run uphill
instead of turning our mill-wheels with its natural energy."

Judge Emery had listened to a word or two of this harangue and then had
looked for and found his hat and coat, with which he had invested
himself, and now stood ready for the street, one hand on the knob of the
door. "Well, good-night to you," he said pleasantly, as though the
doctor were not speaking; "I'll try to see you to-morrow."

Dr. Melton jumped to his feet, laughing, ran across the room and caught
at the other's arm. "Don't blame me. Much preaching of true gospel to
deaf ears has made me yell all the time. You know you don't really hear
me, any more than anyone else."

"There's no doubt about that, I don't!" acquiesced the Judge frankly.

"I will run on, though I know it never does any good. How'd I begin
this time? What started me off? What was I saying?"

"You were saying that Lydia was queer and half-witted," said the Judge
moderately.

"I said she was simple--and by that I mean she's so wise you'd better
look out or she'll find you out. She's as dangerous as a bomb. She has a
scent for essentials. She can tell 'em from all our flummery. I'm afraid
of her, and I'm afraid _for_ her! Remember the fate of the father in the
_Erl-King_! He thought, I dare say, that he was doing a fine thing for
his child, to hurry it along to a nice, war