with his hands on his knees. "Now would you mind
telling me, since you haven't any one else to tell, how much money you
have?"

A little determined shake of the curls. "I shouldn't think of telling
you."

"Then you're a very foolish girl. You ought to have more head and not
so much heart in this affair. Judge Trent is a man whom any one might
be proud to claim, and if you won't behave childishly we can bring him
around all right."

"Do you think I'd stoop to bring him around?" she asked, with a moist
flash of the eyes.

"You wouldn't be the first who stooped to conquer. If you were clever
you would."

"Father thought I was clever, and so does Nat," she said, with feeble
resentment.

"They wouldn't if they knew what you are doing now. Just because a busy
old bachelor of a lawyer, immersed in hard-headed affairs, doesn't
throw all aside and come here to welcome you and behave like a family
man, you repudiate him altogether."

"She said they didn't either of them want me." The voice was a wail.

"But you weren't anything to them but a name."

"I'm their own flesh and blood."

"Yes, and see that you don't forget it. You have a claim upon them. Now
at best it must be some days before you can communicate with
your--friend, perhaps I ought to say your lover."

"Oh, no, don't," with faint dissent. "He's father's friend, really, and
he's--poor thing, he's so fat I don't think he'd call himself anybody's
lover; but he's so kind. He was so good to father."

This time the speaker did not vanish into the handkerchief, but caught
her lip between her little teeth, and looking away, struggled for
composure in a way that drew on John's heartstrings.

This slender creature, not yet strong from the illness that had crowned
her head with those silky tendrils, and with no supporting arm save
that of a barn-storming actor, mediocre in his middle age, what was
Judge Trent's representative to do or say to prevent her from taking
some foolish and desperate course!

"Now you simply must have money to tide you over," he announced. "Let's
not have any nonsense. You can't knock about this hotel. Judge Trent
knew what he was doing when he said the Young Women's Christian
Association. He wanted you guarded, and he wasn't--he didn't--he
couldn't very well guard you himself." Dunham stammered, but collected
himself with praiseworthy dignity. He had recalled his six feet of
height, and rising, began to make the most of the last inch,