and Miss Lucretia's eye, in its search for truth, seemed to
pierce into her very soul. There was no evading that eye. But Mrs.
Merrill did what few people would have had the courage or good sense to
do.

"That is a political article, Miss Penniman," she said, "inspired by a
bitter enemy of Jethro Bass, Mr, Worthington, who has bought the
newspaper from which it was copied. For that reason, I was right in
saying that it is partly true. You nor I, Miss Penniman, must not be the
judges of any man or woman, for we know nothing of their problems or
temptations. God will judge them. We can only say that they have acted
rightly or wrongly according to the light that is in us. You will find it
difficult to get a judgment of Jethro Bass that is not a partisan
judgment, and yet I believe that that article is in the main a history of
the life of Jethro Bass. A partisan history, but still a history. He has
unquestionably committed many of the acts of which he is accused."

Here was talk to make the author of the "Hymn to Coniston" sit up, if she
hadn't been sitting up already.

"And don't you condemn him for those acts?" she gasped.

"Ah," said Mrs. Merrill, thinking of her own husband. Yesterday she would
certainly have condemned. Jethro Bass. But now! "I do not condemn
anybody, Miss Penniman."

Miss Lucretia thought this extraordinary, to say the least.

"I will put the question in another way, Mrs. Merrill," said she. "Do you
think this Jethro Bass a proper guardian for Cynthia Wetherell?"

To her amazement Mrs. Merrill did not give her an instantaneous answer to
this question. Mrs. Merrill was thinking of Jethro's love for the girl,
manifold evidences of which she had seen, and her heart was filled with a
melting pity. It was such a love, Mrs. Merrill knew, as is not given to
many here below. And there was Cynthia's love for him. Mrs. Merrill had
suffered that morning thinking of this tragedy also.

"I do not think he is a proper guardian for her, Miss Penniman."

It was then that the tears came to Mrs. Merrill's eyes for there is a
limit to all human endurance. The sight of these caused a remarkable
change in Miss Lucretia, and she leaned forward and seized Mrs. Merrill's
arm.

"My dear," she cried, "my dear, what are we to do? Cynthia can't go back
to that man. She loves him, I know, she loves him as few girls are
capable of loving. But when she, finds out what he is! When she finds out
how he got the money to supp