The Opened Shutters. Clara Louise Burnham

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СКАЧАТЬ a fool when I engaged him. Perhaps that explains it."

      "You have your hat on, Calvin," remarked Miss Lacey, as she accepted the seat after an investigating sweep of her gloved finger.

      "I beg your pardon," returned the disconcerted lawyer, removing his hat and setting it reluctantly on his desk. Then he, too, sat down, passing his hand over his scanty locks.

      "Your furniture in the next room is shockingly soiled," she went on. "Why don't you have Hannah come with some good flannel rags and tepid water and ivory soap and furniture polish?"

      "It is so old, I don't believe it's worth the trouble," returned the judge pacifically.

      "Well, it isn't my place to say you ought to have new; but do look at it the next time you go out there. I've come, Calvin, to see if you've heard about Sam."

      Judge Trent settled his head in his neck as though bracing himself. "I learned of it yesterday, Martha. Pray accept my condolences. I should have called on you this evening."

      "Excuse me," returned Miss Lacey somewhat tartly, "if I say I don't believe it; and I don't blame you, either. You know very well that there was no more love lost between my brother and me than there was between your brother-in-law and you. Sam didn't make your sister Laura happy, to my shame and sorrow. I'm the one that owes you condolences, and have any time this twenty years."

      "Say ten," returned the judge concisely. "Laura's troubles have been over for nearly ten years."

      "So they have, poor Laura! I used to think that it was such a beautiful thing that Sam had such an artistic temperament; but how seldom it goes with the practical! Poor Sam had just enough talent to tempt him away from a useful business life, and not enough to make his family comfortable. How I do hope his daughter hasn't inherited his happy-go-lucky, selfish nature; for there is that girl for us to deal with, Calvin." Martha Lacey flashed an anxious look at her vis-a-vis.

      "Sam's girl, yes," returned the lawyer. His face had become expressionless. His shoulders had humped forward. He reminded his companion of some animal who instinctively draws itself together to avoid the enemy's detection. So a tree-toad clings against the bark. So a porcupine rolls itself into a ball. To Miss Lacey the latter simile would have been more appealing. She dreaded the arrows he could launch.

      "Sam's girl, yes; but Laura's girl, too, Calvin."

      "Well?" he responded non-committally, and his face and figure seemed incapable of moving a muscle.

      "I couldn't go 'way out to Illinois to the funeral even if I'd known in time," said Miss Lacey plaintively. "I couldn't think of affording it, and I wrote Sylvia so."

      "Then you have been in correspondence with her?" asked the lawyer, and his cold manner appeared to seize an advantage.

      "No, I haven't," responded Martha quickly. "It wasn't till Sam's life was despaired of that she wrote to me, as in duty bound. Of course I answered her; but do you believe, Calvin Trent, before my letter had time to get there—I wasn't very prompt—she wrote again, and said it was all over and some friends were paying her expenses to Boston, and she'd be here on Tuesday."

      Miss Lacey leaned back in her chair and looked desperately for a sign of life in the stony countenance before her.

      "Well?" responded the judge, after a pause.

      "Well, what?" she retorted, in a tense voice. "I've no doubt she's as slipshod—as easy-going, I should say, as her father. The idea of her not waiting for advice from her relatives before she took such a step and came to a strange land uninvited; but she's our flesh and blood, Calvin, and she's in her teens yet. What are you going to do about it?"

      Judge Trent was humped over more defensively than ever. Miss Lacey's nervous tension could not endure the prolonging of the silence with which he met the question.

      "No doubt it comes suddenly on you, Calvin. Still, you say you heard of Sam's death. Did Sylvia write you?"

      "Yes."

      "Did she tell you she was coming to Boston?"

      "Yes."

      "Have you got an idea in this world, Calvin Trent, what she's going to do?"

      "No, have you?"

      It was something to have won a question from him. Miss Martha stirred in her chair.

      "No, I haven't. It is easy to see how her friends thought it would be cheapest to pay her fare here and get her off their hands. Now I thought I'd go to Boston Wednesday morning instead of sending for her to come here, for if she once gets in here it'll be every one's business to nose into our affairs and have something to say." Miss Lacey paused a moment and then added boldly: "And I thought if you would go with me, we could find out just what she has to live on, if anything, and whether she has any plans."

      The humped-over figure continued to gaze silently into space.

      "It would be hypocrisy for me to say I have any affection for an absolute stranger just because she happens to be the child of a brother who never was any comfort to me in this world. With you it may be different," continued Miss Lacey, with what she intended to be adroitness. "Laura was a dear little thing, and you loved her, and this is her child."

      Another pause. It was doubtful what thoughts were behind Judge Trent's half-closed eyes.

      "My affairs aren't any more brilliant and promising as the years go by," pursued Miss Lacey. "You know as well as I do what condition I'm in to adopt Sam's girl."

      She suddenly dashed some bright drops from her lashes. Indignant tears they were, brought there by the apparent futility of her appeals.

      "By the way," said the judge slowly, "that visit of condolence I was intending to make on you was to be one of congratulation as well."

      Martha paused, her handkerchief poised in air.

      "Yes; that unfortunate investment of yours turned out all right after all. At least I secured your principal for you."

      The surprised, glad color came into Martha's face. "How in the world did you manage that, Calvin!" she ejaculated.

      "I'll send you the papers and cash very soon."

      "I don't know how to thank you. I really don't," stammered the visitor.

      She had been very angry with her erstwhile lover a minute ago. The revulsion of feeling bewildered her.

      The judge rose, and she found herself following his example.

      "You haven't told me a word what your judgment is about the girl," she said, rather pitifully.

      He nodded. "Your judgment will be the best. A woman is worth two men in such a case. Carry out your plan, Martha. Interview her, and then we'll see—we'll see."

      He held open the office door for his visitor to pass out, and woman-like her memory flew back. It seemed but yesterday that this man was hanging on her looks, pleading for her love.

      A fleeting glance at his expressionless face as he waited for her to pass him was enough. Again her eyes swept the dingy anteroom. "Good-by, Calvin, it's been a СКАЧАТЬ