tecting arm and straightened suddenly.

"Why, ye domned little fool, ye!" she screamed. "Ye never told a lie
before in all your days! Judge Whiting, I had the axe round me neck by
the climbin' strap, and I got it in me fingers when we heard the crature
comin', and against his chist I set it, and I gave him a shove that sint
him over. Like a cat he was a-clingin' and climbin', and when I saw him
comin' up on us with that awful face of his, I jist swung the axe like I
do when I'm rejoocin' a pace of eucalyptus to fireplace size, and whack!
I took the branch supportin' him, and a dome' good axe I spoiled din'
it."

Katy folded her arms, lifted her chin higher than it ever had been
before, and glared defiance at the Judge.

"Now go on," she said, "and decide what ye'll do to me for it."

The Judge reached over and took both Katherine O'Donovan's hands in a
firm grip.

"You brave woman!" he said. "If it lay in my power, I would give you the
Carnegie Medal. In any event I will see that you have a good bungalow
with plenty of shamrock on each side of your front path, and a fair
income to keep you comfortable when the rheumatic days are upon you."

"I am no over-feeder," said Katy proudly. "I'm daily exercisin' me
muscles enough to kape them young. The rheumatism I'll not have. And
nayther will I have the house nor the income. I've saved me money; I've
an income of me own."

"And as for the bungalow," interrupted Linda, "Katherine, as I have
mentioned frequently before is my father, and my mother, and my whole
family, and her front door is mine."

"Sure," said Katy proudly. "When these two fine people before you set
up their hearthstone, a-swapin' it I'll be, and carin' for their
youngsters; but, Judge, I would like a bit of the shamrock. Ye might be
sendin' me a start of that, if it would plase Your Honor."

Judge Whiting looked intently at Katherine O'Donovan. And then, as if
they had been on the witness stand, he looked searchingly at Linda. But
Linda was too perturbed, too accustomed to Katy's extravagant nonsense
even to notice the purport of what she had said. Then the Judge turned
his attention to Peter Morrison and realized that at least one of the
parties to Katherine's proposed hearthstone had understood and heartily
endorsed her proposal.

"I will have to be going. The boy and his mother will need me," he said.
"I will see all of you later."

Then he sprang across the brook and sent his car roaring down