Katy's Fortune

IV.

KATY WINS THE SHELL AND OVERDO GETS THE KERNEL.

WHEN Mr. Brown left Katy after that interview, he did not feel like going back to business. The saloon was convenient, and he stepped in to take a drink. It was cool in there, and there was a billiard-table. He played with the saloon-keeper, and they talked about neighbor Konigratz’s going away. The place was one of his haunts, and Brown found the story of his influence over Overdo no secret among the man’s cronies. They played and drank, Brown drinking the fiery whisky of such places, and presently he found himself full of whisky - wisdom. He would see the agent and worm out of him the name of the person who got Miss Keith’s money, He went straight to the agency and drew the broker aside.

“Mis’r Overdo; man in the blue coat an’ brass buttons, ye know; got Miss Keith’s money, ye know,” uttered with an impulse of his breath that tickled the agent’s ear and made him dizzy with drinking at his nose. “ Man in the brass coat an’ blue buttons,” said Brown; blow on him.” And he leered with drunken craft at that astute suggestion.

The agent was worried and nervous. He whispered a clerk to fetch the police. The man declined peremptorily. Brown was notoriously dangerous, and if given in charge to-day, would inevitably shoot the man who did it to-morrow.

Our diplomatist returned to the question again. “ Man in the brass — in the blue coat, you know; got Miss Keith’s money, you know. Blow on him; turn State’s evidence; d’ye see?” and he winked a volume of criminal jurisprudence over that profoundly devised strategy.

The agent was white. He was in the tiger’s claws; for he, too, knew Brown’s terribly dangerous character when in that condition. “ If you know who has her money, Mr. Brown,” he said obsequiously, “ you know I have not. Why do you sue me for it? ”

“ You are a pretty d-d slippery scoundrel,” said Brown, as if expressing an encomium on his virtue, “but ’sponsible; oh, yes! ’sponsible man, Mis’r Overdo; an’ ye got to ante up.”

“ But I don’t owe it, Mr. Brown,” said the agent, “ and will not pay it,” afraid even in his terror to make an admission the law might construe into a revival of the obligation — a thing the law is singularly ready to do.

“Not pay! Go right against the law! ” said Brown, construing the refusal to apply to obedience to a judgment at law. “It will be my professional duty to make you pay it; and I will make you; that’s good as a promise, and no man ever knew me to break a promise — but one,” he added, suddenly slipping from the tall stool and throwing his hand under his coat with a peculiar gesture, “ and there’s the reprobated scoundrel now.” This was a tigerish fellow who slouched in the back way, the very client Brown had threatened at Katy’s first visit to his office, if he forfeited bail, and the man had forfeited bail.

It was shown later that he went to the agent to rent a house for some loose characters under his protection. He wanted to find the agent, and he found Brown.

For a moment there was a preliminary scurrying like that of a rat finding itself in the presence of a cat. In the pause Brown was as much like the lithe feline as the other like the vermin; but the bayed rat fights.

“Throw up your hands!” shouted Brown with that sharp, military accent. “Ah! Will you?” and there were two quick reports. Brown was brushing a powder-burn from his checks and hair; the other was down and bleeding, shot through and through.

“ The man is a criminal who forfeited bail,”explained the young lawyer to the policemen. “I was his bondsman, and offered to arrest him, when he resisted. Don’t let him escape.”

“ He will not be apt to escape, Mr. Brown,” said the officer bending over the man. “He has got his demit this time.”

“ I hope not,” said Brown, but it was so. The man died in the agent’s office in less than half an hour. If anything had been needed to complete the agent’s terror, it was this. But the shock had partly sobered Brown, and it drove Katy’s affairs out of his mind. I he effect of it was that the circumstances of the trial monopolized Mr. Lorn, and a reluctance to speak to Katy of so painful a subject kept him from visiting her. Then his partner, without confessing the occasion of his learning it, told of her engagement to Earl Groth, and Lorn felt bitterly that, for his own good, he must not see her. It was one of those wise resolves that would keep until he did see her. This he soon had occasion to do, but not before some other events occurred relating to the cause itself.

While Mr. Lorn was occupied in the ease of Commonwealth v. Brown, Judge Groth made a motion in the suit to recover Katy’s money. Perhaps because of absence of opposing counsel; I have known such things to he done. He said to the court: “In Keith v. Overdo; tender of bond and security; and motion to withdraw attached funds.”

You perceive, my legal reader, this was to get out the money seized by our nonchalant friend the deputy sheriff, leaving in its place a promise of the broker and one of his friends to repay it in court if called upon — a usual motion in such cases.

“ Notice to withdraw, I presume you mean,” said the suave judiciary, with emphasis on the first word; thereby intimating that this was not to be done summarily or in the absence of counsel for the plaintiff, and as a matter of course.

“May it please the court,” remonstrated Judge Groth, “is not that unusual ? the plaintiff being secured by the bond, It cannot interest her to retain the money here, idle, and must we wait on her pleasure? ”

“It is in the discretion of the court, and you must wait on that,” said the judge, as formally civil as ever. “Shall the notice be entered? ” It was entered, and argued soon after. Judge Groth presented his argument as above, and added that the retention of the fund in idleness could only be from malice, since the plaintiff could not use it.

Mr. Lorn referred to the uncertain condition of all business securities, and the evidence in the attachment. “If the defendant suffered through this extra caution, he could blame nothing but his own act and character.”

The court said: “The case is docketed for the first of the next term; the funds will be retained till then. If at that time it is continued at the plaintiff’s instigation, this motion may be renewed; but not otherwise.”

This was a swift judge in getting through a docket, and he was provoked at the delays in this suit. He had found a way to squelch any more dilatory motions now. Judge Groth was very angry. This shyster recently called to the bar had beaten him in open court again, and the bar congratulated the young fellow on it. After the intimation of his honor, lie would not renew the motion, to be beaten another time; but he resolved to talk to the judge, his old friend and former partner, about it—a not unusual way of attorneys in some instances. He did talk with him, and drew the inference that his case was lost. The judge as much as said the fund in court was rightfully Katy Keith’s, and if the law could give it to her, she should have it. When the judge talks that way, it requires no great shrewdness to anticipate what the law is going to he. It mortified Groth, and he spoke of it at home.

“And then Catharine Keith will be rich after all!” said his wife, thinking of her mistake in trying to break her son’s engagement.

“ So far as this court can make it,” said her husband irritably, “but the Federal court will decide very differently.”

“ Oh, judge!” said she, “it might not, you know, and you needn’t advise it. Think of Earl; he likes her yet.”

“ They all like her,” said he, as if he resented it. “I have had nothing but sour looks and words from my other boy Ben, about it. I believe he was at the bottom of that wretched blunder over the attachment; ” and the judge looks like the elder Booth, as Richard III., when they tell him Stanley has deserted to the enemy. But a wife’s influence is as wearing as water dropping, and the hard judge will find it so; Katy Keith will rise into family favor again. All this while Katy was going through her troubles; and now Mr. Lorn received a curious polyglot letter from Madame Konigratz. She wrote in great distress,; she had inquired of her husband, and sent a vague description of the mysterious stranger in blue dress-coat, but her information was obscured by her own troubles. Konigratz had disappeared. She wanted Mr. Lorn to make inquiries, and she was going to send poor little Taddy in search of his father.

This information made an interview with his client necessary. Konigratz would hardly turn up as a witness in time. Should the proceedings go on to trial without him? or asking a postponement, should Lorn risk the hold on the attached funds? If Katy was willing, he would try the case. Konigratz’s evidence would not touch the principle involved, but be must consult his client about so decided a step. At her mother’s he learned that she was working at a hook-bindery, and he went there in search of her. He arrived at the fourth floor where the bindery was, to receive Katy in his arms, flying from the tipsy foreman.

The man was civil and respectful when sober, but if drinking, the reverse. It was not the first time he had offended, but he had never offended so grossly before. Lorn knocked him down, and now led Katy out trembling and crying, almost carrying her down the steep staircases.

“ My dear Miss Keith,” said he, “ why do you stay at such a place? ”

“ There! ” she said, recovering herself and removing his arm. “ What can I do ? I must earn something for mamma and me; and what can a poor girl do? I have no place else.” Poor little thing! after all her gentle breeding, to come to this; to have no way to earn her bread, but by submitting to the coarse insults of a brute. It was a terrible revelation of her hardships to the young man, and he wanted to be very tender with her, but could not. She. was ashamed at the humiliation he had witnessed, and remembered only that she had seen him coming out of the drinking saloon. He had broken his promise, and could be nothing to her. If she had spoken of it, he might have explained or expiated his wrong; but she knew that that would not do. It would betray an interest in him she ought not to have. He found her changed and reserved, and could only talk business; but when he left her he asked if he might not call in the evening. She pleaded fatigue and excused herself.

“ You will not go to that place again ?" he asked.

“ Mamma will see Mr.-, the proprietor. I will not return unless I can do it without risk.”

Then, very reluctantly, he left her. But the night was fine and clear, with a brilliant moon, and Lorn was now in love. Yes, the pity and sympathy, and the very repulse of that evening, made him confess it and be proud of it, and lover - like he strolled by the house. Katy was sitting on the front stoop with the Rev. Mr. Jargony, and the preacher was a bachelor. Dear reader, did you ever take a sharp jealous pang to bed with you and try to sleep on it?

But better times were coming for Katy. Earl Groth had returned. His mother had only waited for that to open plans for the rehabilitation and completion of the marriage contract.

The Groths descended upon Katy like an avalanche. She had a situation, at the time, in a dollar store, a new enterprise in those days, and the Groth girls came fluttering about the shy little shopgirl, to the shopman’s delight. They took such an interest in her, too. “ Why not have some one, some real good lawyer, to help that dear, clever Mr. Lorn? It was usual, and papa said it would be quite right, and make her case safer. ” if Katy had had any disposition to reject these advances, she could not have done it, for her mother’s sake. The poor widow was starving for old association and friends; easy, careless gossip about things and people she knew. In fine, her influence and that of the others induced Katy to consent to the employment of additional counsel, if Mr. Lorn advised it. That was her condition. She would do nothing in the case without his advice. Earl Groth undertook to see the young lawyers, and was very busy and important about it. Let us see how he sped on his mission.

He found the partners drawn up before the cold grate, which served as a spittoon. Brown was making a fox and goose hoard; Lorn was reading the Electra of Euripides in the Greek — a language he resorted to in trouble, as other men take to drink. Perhaps he tried a little of both, as not altogether incompatible. Earl was elegant; perfumed like a milliner, if milliners are necessarily in odors. He tendered his card, which Brown gravely received and passed over to his partner.

“I am a friend of Miss Keith,” said this gorgeous visitor.

“ Did n’t know she had any friends,” said Lorn dryly; “ sit down.”

“ I have called about her business,” said Earl; “ consulting with her friends, she is advised to procure assistant counsel. You don’t object? ”

“ Not in the least,” said Lorn.

“It is Feebil & Costs,” continued Earl. “Will they do? ”

“None better,” said Lorn; “ say to them we will be happy to give the papers and any information touching the case. Let it be asked at once. You will say to—to your friend, that Brown & Lorn have withdrawn from the case.”

“ Withdrawn from the case! ” exclaimed Earl, discomfited at this sudden turn.

“ Altogether, sir,” said the imperturbable Lorn, “ Have you any further business with us? ”

“ No, sir; but Miss Keith ” — began Earl.

“ Has our best wishes for her success,” added Lorn. “ We need say no more about the matter. There is nothing else, I believe? ”

There was nothing else. Earl Groth had done quite enough for one morning. It is characteristic of the man, that he never told Katy of the withdrawal of Brown & Lorn from the case. She found that out later; to her own and Earl Groth’s cost.

“Who the deuce is that?” asked Brown, after the visitor left.

“That,” said his partner, “is Earl Groth, the son of Judge Groth, and engaged to our late client.”

“The dickens you say!” retorted Brown, tapping the bars of the grate with the tongs, and twitching his hat forward, by a curious movement of the occipito - frontalis muscle. “Ho you know I thought you were ahead there? ”

“ Perhaps two of us made that mistake,” said Lorn grimly, “but I got the worst of it.”

“ You didn’t know I was soft there myself, did you?” said his partner, looking curiously at his companion. “ I never expected to be so — well, it don’t matter. I used to be absolutely clammy about her. I was that soaked and limp in love, it oozed out of the pores like sweat. There was no more stand up in me than in a hot collar in July. I just wilted down to her, I did. I hated you, old pard, and your deuced lingo, to kill. That was the way it took me. I felt like she was mine by rights, and you ought to know it. Dad took to her, so did the old woman; and sis and all. The old folks said if I got her they would set us up in a too-ral-loo-ral (truly rural?) cot, and divide the pot like the governor in the Probable Son. I was glad, dem my stingy hide! that you had no dad to pony up. I beg pardon, old fellow: I don’t believe I could do it, if you had won, and p’rhaps you would n’t care a cuss then if I didn’t — but I was a mean dog, that’s a fact. Put how could I help it! such a gentle, loving, timid little thing like that! ” and Brown looked very like relapsing into that clammy state again.

“ God bless you, my Pylades,” said Lorn, which the other did not at all understand. “It’s as you say, and timid too — in a way. But Brown, she has more real pluck— Let me tell you. It scares me to think of it. now.

“You know last Saturday I took her out driving. We started over the new river bridge. I was driving a wild, hard-mouthed brute, and had no business there, but I wanted to — never mind, I did n’t get it. The parapet or guard rail at the side is not all up, and it is against orders to cross. But they knew me, confound ’em, and let me by. There are open spaces where the railing is not up, and the cursed river boiled and seethed and howled on the falls, a hundred and fifty feet below, like a hungry devil. A beam or plank two inches thick and two feet wide had been set on edge along an open panel, as a sort of guard: but something had tipped it over, and one end was keyed out, a yard or more, on the bridge, while the other end projected diagonally a few inches over the hell of waters; just the end of it, like that,” illustrating by laying his cane on the table in the described position. “ I was bearing well over to the other side, you may believe, when a loose plank or something started the brute, and he shied desperately over to that side. The wheels struck along the outer edge of that beam, just as the flange of a carwheel fits over a T rail. The beam was eighteen or twenty feet long, the brute at full plunging speed and fighting the bit like a born devil. We were scouring down that railway at lightning speed to assured destruction.

“ Death was just certain. But, an inch or so from the end, the tires knocking the chips into the water, the wheels caught, bounced, and with a skip and a jump we were saved. It was done, and done in less than a second. I was cold all over; faint and sick; nauseated. I turned to look at Miss Keith. She had not blenched a whit; her eye was just as bright, and there was that little eddy or dimple you may have noticed at the corner of her mouth before her quiet smile. She said in a calm, usual voice, ‘ I am glad we escaped; I did not think you could do it.’ Brown, she had not shrieked or spoken, nor even offered to touch my bridle hand, which not one mortal in a million could avoid, though it might be ruin; and yet she could have dropped her glove over the buggy sheer down into that boiling death.”

“My God! what an escape!” exclaimed Brown. “ What did she say ? ”

“ Nothing you would care to hear; took it as easy as if she had a pair of wings under her shawl,” said Lorn. “ As I helped her out at home, she said, 'Please don’t tell mamma; it might frighten her.’ Frighten her! I should think it would. I cannot shut my eyes without seeing the bridge, with chips and blocks lying about; the scared face of an Irishman running to us; the sweet summer sky above, and that fierce storm of white, rock-gashed water below, sending its hungry bellow to my ears. Be still and listen, and you can hear it now, above the noises of the town, and at niglit plainer. Timid? Yes, she is, in a way; but braver too, my boy, than anything that wears breeches, and that I ’ll swear.”

“ And she is going to marry that box of perfumery,” said Brown, returning to the subject.

“ Of course; she is one of them that stays,” said Lorn. “ She will not break her word, if he does not, and, to do him justice, he stuck by her while the others fell off. As soon as he got home, he raised a row about things, and had her and her mother in comfortable quarters—a cottage of his father’s. Aunt Cynthy told me all about it. ’

“ Aunt Cynthy? ” queried Brown.

“ Oh yes, — our client and washwoman,” replied his partner carelessly. “ She gossips about Miss Keith, or ‘young missus,’ whenever she comes. She told me of the engagement. Miss Keith has given up her place at the dollar store, and they are to marry in September, or as soon as the case is over. He, and his mother too, Cynthy says, pressed to have the marriage at once, but she would not hear to it, till she got back her money. I don’t think Judge Groth will fight very hard. Of course he, this Earl, represents her in fact, if not in law. That’s what made me short about the matter.”

“ Oh! ” said Brown.

“ Yes, I thought it was due to us,” continued his partner. “Come, I’ve saved a pot of money lately, and the faculty prescribes beer and billiards.”

There had been more in that eventful interview than Lorn had told. Distrusting Aunt Cynthy somewhat, he had taken Katy driving with a purpose. He found some difficulty in getting at the subject, but presently he said,—

“ So my little client is going to be married.”

“ I suppose so,” said Katy, and then he concluded he would not say it at all. After their escape she said to him: “ God has given us our lives again; let us try to make them worthy of his mercy. ”

Feebil & Costs, Katy’s new counselors, were, as the name implies, at the top of the profession and the bottom of every case; crowded, jammed with work. They found Keith v. Overdo set for the next term, and postponed conference with Brown & Lorn. “ We have all vacation to hear their views,” said Costs, “if they amount to anything;” and the tone implied an opinion that they did not. Feebil & Costs infer that those young shysters have been found incompetent, and are not disposed to consult them in the matter. Let us see how that way of managing a law case works.

When Judge Groth refused to renew the motion to withdraw attached funds, his client took other counsel, and a less scrupulous attorney. Let us go into court and see what he does.

The last day of the term. Judge Groth in his office; Feebil in chancery court; Costs, who managed the common pleas, occupied half an hour when his name was called, in various motions, and then, when the last name on the roll was reached, went into the office to renew an old quarrel about taxing costs, with the clerk. Judge Precepit is at Crab Orchard refreshing the judicial mind, leaving the business of the court to be wound up by a sprightly fellow, chosen by the bar under the admirable American system of electioneering—admirable because its impartiality excludes even merit as a ground of preferment. There is nothing but petty appeals from magistrates’ courts, and formal motions. It is late in the term and the day. Even Ben Groth has walked out, bored. A slender, half-bent attorney, with a lurking eye, hollow jaws, and wispy locks, and with a piping voice, suddenly rises: —

“ Beg your honor’s pardon; omitted a motion. Perhaps Judge Groth — however, by leave of court I will state it.”

The court assents.

“In Keith v. Overdo; tender of bond and security, and motion to withdraw attached funds. Ample security and more if required,” and he mentions the co-surety’s name. It is a gentleman who, with Katy’s grandfather, gave the agent his first start in business. Before the war, he was rich in lands and slaves, and the shell, but it is only a shell, remains. Had the regular judge been sitting, or had there been a contest over it, his bond would have been refused. As it is, the plaintiff has no representative in court and the ease goes by default. His supposititious honor says, with an air of doing and saying something very fine, —

“ Perfectly sufficient; a little malice in the persistent opposition on the part of the plaintiff, to this motion, which I feel it my duty, sitting in foro juridice, to rebuke. Have Colonel Hollobody and Mr. Overdo sworn, and execute the bond;” at which Colonel Hollobody, who is a fine-looking old gentleman with white hair, and knows nothing of what he is doing, comes forward. The agent has told him it is a mere form, and the kindly old aristocrat is fond of forms, and executes the bond with a flourish.

Lorn hears of it, and, in angry impulse at seeing his work spoiled, charges on Feebil & Costs, with cutting sarcasm. They are rather nervous at first, and feel that they have been outwitted; but recollecting a long series of wellpaid blunders, and that Lorn was only called to the bar yesterday, they poohpooh him. “ Really, this excitement is about a trifle; observe what the court said. We don’t know that we would have resisted this motion. The money could do us no good, and is just as safe.”

“Safe!” said Lorn, “do you call Overdo or Hollobody safe? ”

They winced at that: “Well, in our extreme caution, possibly we would have explained to Colonel Hollobody that it would not do, and spared him the exposure of refusal in open court. In the way of business, Mr. Lorn, we have often to deal harshly with the reputation of good men, but we never — never if we can avoid it — subject them to the ignominy of publicity, and probably would have spared our friend the old colonel, rather than act in open court.”

“Nee pueros coram populo Medea trucidet,” quoted Lorn with a sneer, “but the play seems to be Iphigenia, with your client, Miss Keith, in the character of the sacrifice.” Which fine piece of malicious sarcasm fell off Feebil & Costs like water from a duck’s back, as they did not in the least understand it.

“ Exactly so, exactly so; very neat,” said old Feebil; “and classic. I cannot say that I 'class,’ myself, if that is the expression, but I like it, sir; I like it; especially before a jury.” And Will Lorn walked away, beaten at every point.

While Katy’s new advisers were running her case into the mud after this fashion, she got on the track of her most important witness, the lost Konigratz, whose evidence might redeem even their blunders. Her informant was Signora Figli, a brisk little jointed doll of an Italian, with quick black eyes. A little Savoyard had been taken up as a vagrant, and falling sick was thrust into the pest-house. Visiting him, Signora Figli found the German and Taddy, and the boy asked for his old teacher. As they walked, the Italian rattled away about her protéyée.

“ Oh! ze American, hard as ax. Zey see ze littel Lucchese weez hes wagone an’ ze monkay, an' cry, See ze vagabone ! Ze small boy ’ave cross Mont Cenis weez hes pack. He make the foot evairywhere. He saind all hes monay home to hes fazair an’ hes mozair. Bimeby go he home; buy littel vanyar’ weez grape. You ask heem where he from, he say, ‘ Vi sono dei buoni e dei eattivi dappertutto — sono Lueehese per servirla; ’ zat ees, Bad peopel evairywhere, Luccliese to your sarevees; and zat ees de trute, and zare ees de paste house, an’ ze dog’s house eet ees.” Katy found it so; foul and reeking with bad smells, with but one attendant, a woman with faded, shallow blue eyes, who addressed her companion : —

“ That ’ere boy would n't eat the arry root, and I made it into blank mange” — she pronounced it professionally like a dog’s disease—“’cos my innards was a-pinin’ an’ it did me a power o’ good, thank ye. Likewise I am sorry for to say the dog have eat his monkey. It were a pesky critter’s ever I see. Mr. Konigratz? Yes ’m: he’s in a power o’ sufferin’. He’s quieter now. ’Bout a hour by sun he made a fetch to jump out the winder an’ he got hitched, an’ can’t get out nor in. I ’lowed I ’d h’ist him out bimeby. Tim little feller’s a-pokin’ at. him now, I guess.”

This curious statement was true. In his delirium, for the man had the mania a potu, he had got his head fastened in the bars of the window, and the poor boy was working with his feeble strength to release his wretched father. They set him free, but it was only in time to see him die. He committed his boy to Katy, told the little he knew about the conversion of her money, and, with words of bitter penitence over a wasted life, turned his face to the wall and died. There seemed a fatality about it. Katy no sooner approached a satisfactory conclusion of her cause than adverse fortune destroyed her hope. Fortunately she did not know of the importance of this witness. But she took Taddy home and he remained with her, resuming his occupation of newsboy and evening pupil.

Then her cause came on to be heard. Costs was bungling through a forest of difficulty, and had missed the whole point of the case. He aimed to prove fraud in the omission from the schedule, for which he had not a jot of evidence, and rested his case on that. The judge had looked blacker and blacker as he went on. At length he turned shortly on Lorn.

“ Are you not in this case? ”

“ No, sir,” said Lorn, surprised; “ we have withdrawn.”

“Have you briefed it?” continued the judge.

“ Well, your honor, I had prepared a brief, thinking ” — began Lorn.

“ Send it in,” said the judge; “gentlemen, the evidence is in ; the cause will be heard by brief. Mr. Costs, have in your brief by Friday, and yours, Mr. Lorn. The defense receives the same notice. Clerk, call the next case.”

So Mr. Lorn’s brief went in, but Feebil & Costs treated it as mere courtesy of the court, and Judge Groth ignored it.

Then Katy won her cause.

The Groths were congratulatory. “ You must be very grateful to that dear, faithful fellow,” said Earl’s mother, “for securing the services of Feebil & Costs, and taking your case out of the hands of those impudent young profligates. Judge Groth is quite sure they would have lost it.. But it is all safe now, and the dear boy will be expecting his reward.”

Such speeches led to an explanation, and Katy learned, with unspeakable chagrin, that Earl had presumed to take her case out of the hands of Brown & Lorn.

“ Why, mamma,” she said, “it’s a shame! I never would have tried but for Mr. Lorn. All the others discouraged me, and Earl worst of all. They all slander him, and I don’t believe one word they say.”

When a young lady begins to talk vehemently after that fashion, the signs are pretty favorable; and at that unlucky moment, Earl, backed by his foolish mother, chose to press his suit. He was met by about as much fire as such a gentle little creature could get up, and the long, lingering engagement went off in a flash. Katy returned to her situation in the dollar store, and recalled Brown & Lorn into her case, where judgment waited on execution, and in society Mrs. Groth spoke her mind freely: —

“ Earl was quite infatuated, and wasted I don’t know how much money on her lawyers. That scheming girl encouraged him until her case was won, and then went back to her low associates. Of course my son’s respect for his family would not allow that, and he broke off with her.”

Society, in its young misses, had great commiseration for a fine young fellow who had made a fool of himself about a woman, and said, “ What a creature she must be!” No doubt he found consolation.

Mr. Lorn wanted his consolation also, but Katy was afraid. How could she marry a man who differed with her on the vital point of Christian faith, or howset her love before him as a temptation to falsify himself? So when he pressed his suit the poor girl, struggling with herself, said very softly:—•

“ Do not, Mr. Lorn; it is not right. Let us he as we were; it is so sweet to be that way, and the future so uncertain. God help us both.”

Was that refusal, encouragement, or what? Katy meant that he must first work out his own salvation with a heart humbled to his Maker; Mr. Lorn understood there was a difficulty, but men are made to overcome difficulties. Let us get to the next chapter and see the conclusion of all this law and loving.

V.

BROWN’s MORAL SUASION.

Now the blunder of Feebil & Costs in the attachment bore its evil fruit. To execution in Keith v. Overdo, the sheriff returned “ no property found.” A motion to go on the sureties was answered by a notice in bankruptcy by Colonel Hollobody’s assignee. The court, aroused to the fact that it had been used pretty much as a gambler uses his tools to deceive the unwary, made the order on Overdo to return attached funds peremptory, and on failure to respond in cash, put him in jail for contempt. He supped in the jailer’s room with a few choice spirits, and was released the next day on the trifling perjury of the insolvent debtor’s oath, having defeated the law in a fair, standup fight, and now held on to Katy’s money with doubled fists. That was the news her disappointed atto: neys had to bring to her.

She was still at the dollar store, but the enterprise had lost its novelty, and trade fell off. One assistant was all Katy needed in her half section of the store. The stock had run down to a beggarly account of empty boxes. But at length the promised invoice of the new supply came. The crates lumbered up the sidewalk half a day, and it was quite late in the afternoon before the porter got them in and Katy stood ready with the shop-girls to open and arrange them on the shelves. Then Mr. Rosenberg, the proprietor, interfered: it was late; the young ladies were tired; let them begin fresh in the morning and make a day’s work of it. The girls gladly accepted the suggestion, and fluttered off like pigeons from a stoop. Katy had waited to balance her cash account, when Mr. Rosenberg came up and began a declaration of love. Frightened at being alone with him, though the front door was ajar, she hastily closed her books and hurried out. He persisted in following her, though the street was full of men going home from business, until she took a street car to escape him.

It was early, and she remembered business that needed attention. They still occupied Judge Groth’s cottage, and, for security, she had brought her pony to the city to be sold, in order to meet the rent. A young fellow, setting up as a coal merchant, who professed to have served in the army with her brother, offered to purchase. By Mr. Lorn’s advice she had required security, as he had asked time, and it was readily given. The note was now due, and she stepped from the car at the little office to collect the money. Mr. Harrison had the usual story; a late winter had made a slack season in coal, but if she would allow him sixty days more he would pay, or return the horse. Innocent of business knowledge, it was not in her nature to be hard on a comrade of the dear, deceased brother. The last quarter had been settled, and for two months she would not need it. She consented, not knowing that in doing so she had released the surety. She stood a moment petting her pony which stood at the door in a coal cart, and then went home wondering over a girl who had had brothers, a father, mother, and home, and a pony to ride, unable to realize that it had ever been herself.

At breakfast she opened the paper Taddy had left them, to read to her mother, when a notice caught her eye.

Fire.—The building known as the dollar store was totally consumed last night, with the stock. It is severe on Mr. Rosenberg, who had just replenished, but he has the satisfaction of knowing that his losses are mitigated by insurance in the Hartford and Home Insurance Companies.

Katy visited the place and found the girls flocked about it. Some said Rosenberg must provide for them; others questioned Katy closely, remembering that she had been left in the store. She told what she knew, omitting the proprietor’s love-story, and the consciousness of withholding something betrayed itself in her manner. The worst inference was put upon it in connection with the burning of the store before the stock was opened and exhibited. It was believed the stock was sham, and that Rosenberg had fired the building to get the insurance.

She was out of employment; all hope from her suit was gone, and that poisonous rumor clung to her. She applied, but no one would accept of her services. Hints and innuendoes, cowardly suspicions, followed, associating her with fraud, and the unsuspecting girl never dreamed of it. She thought it was hard that those who ought to know her to be trustworthy and diligent did not help her with work; but she did not complain. She toiled on, pinching, starving, walking the snowy streets in worn, broken shoes, and putting up that piteous petition, “If you please, sir, have you any work in your store a young woman could do? ” No, they had none; sometimes, after a whisper among them, one would rush out and follow her with his eyes and point the finger at her.

Her mother was sick. Broken with loss of friends, with loss of fortune, with loss of hope, what could the poor mother do but sink? And Katy pinched and starved herself to buy her mother delicacies. The little money she could get at making tatting, a kind of lace or edging, was her only earnings, and that was little enough. It was God’s charity now that the kindness extended to the boy, Taddy Konigratz, was bread upon the waters. What he earned —and the boy gave it all to her — fed them, and for clothing she patched and sewed and looked neat and pretty in rags. The terrible want was coals; there must be fire in her mother’s room, and every lump cost drops of the poor girl’s blood. The worst was an apprehension that she might lose the help of Taddy. His uncle had made more than one effort to get possession of the boy and his earnings. Mr. Lorn had assured her that the man had no legal claim whatever, but Mr. Lorn did not fully understand the working of local charities. Mr. Overdo was “ the father of the orphan,” the patron of the House of Refuge. There had been a great dinner there, where the wounds of the poor little wretches were exhibited, and the jail mark stamped upon them. Katy read it, and thought it a singular way to treat crime or misfortune, to make a show of it — but where was Taddy?

Noon came, and no Taddy; afternoon, and still the boy, always regular, was away. Katy had depended on his earnings to go marketing. All the food in the house she had given to her mother, and still the boy did not come. Let us see where he was.

As the police judge read the fulsome eulogies of the House of Refuge, and disposed of cases of petty larceny, drunkenness, wife-beating, etc., a sharp little lad, very much frightened, was brought before him.

“I’m his uncle,” said a German, though his English was slangy. “ He has got with some woman or ’nother, and she puts him up to jobs and gobbles all his money. I can't do nothin’ with him. ”

The judge pictures some female of doubtful reputation breeding the boy up in crime. He eulogizes the House of Refuge and commits the lad. His uncle goes through his pockets, and a policeman tucks him under his arm and carries him off to Mr. Overdo’s “ local charity.” It is Taddy Konigratz.

Katy’s anxiety becomes unendurable, and she seizes on a visit from Aunt Cynthy to dispatch the negress to her one remaining friend, Mr. Lorn. The old woman had made a shrewd guess about the destitution in the house, and perhaps betrayed it, for on her return she brings this polite note, and cans of oysters, a bottle of wine, and some other things.

DEAR Miss KEITH, — I may be detained after my dinner hour. Will you save me a walk to my boarding-house by preparing these things and permitting me to sup with you? I hope Mrs. Keith will accept the wine. I think she will find it very good.

Yours truly, W. A. LORN.

Perhaps Katy saw through this, but like the simple, honest creature she was, she accepted it without hesitation, and went quietly to prepare the meal. Something prompted her to decline Aunt Cynthy’s help, and she added a little to the meal. The carpenter’s wife next door, who had a cow, readily furnished fresh cream and butter, and soon the little girl, as she worked the rollingpin, was chanting under her breath, —

interjected with little spurts of compliment and remonstrance to her work, and accentuation where she bore stoutly on the rolling-pin. She was just brushing the marks of her neat toil from her when Mr. Lorn found her.

There was the very spread on the little square table that makes a cozy room look cozier, and a delicate flush on Katy’s face, caused by bending over saucepans at the fire. Oysters simmered in a chafing-dish, distilling a savory fragrance, and forming with the coffee a bouquet of peculiarly appetizing flavor. Other bivalves on the brownest of buttered toast were broiled to the perfection of cookery. A jug of real cream contributed to the luxury. But sweeter than all this, and daintier than flaky loaf or fragrant coffee, was the little mistress in dark calico and cunning apron, with keys and scissors jingling at her girdle. The widow’s room adjoined, with open door between them, and the lights of the two apartments mingled and wedded in very suggestive brightness.

They chatted merrily over the meal, Katy rising to go to the stove or to run to mamma, and coming back again with the brightest of eyes and blushes. Of course they talked of Taddy, but I don’t think the young lawyer regretted his absence very much.

After the meal Katy ordered him, in a peremptory little way, to go out in the air and smoke his cigar while she cleared up, and the meek young man obeyed. When he returned, Katy said softly, closing the door not quite to,—

“ Speak low, please; mamma is not quite well, and tell me all about Taddy.”

“No, Katy,” said he, “I must first speak about myself and you as I once thought never to speak again. ”

It was coming now, and she listened silently in gathering tears.

“ You know what hope cheered me in that suit, and how the suit was lost. I thought you would blame me ” —

“ Oh no, no,” interrupted Katy, “ oh no, no. How could you? ”

“I blamed myself,” he continued. “ I was very earnest about it, and selfish, I said, I will win it for her, and no one shall share. I was wrong. I know it now, as we know many things — too late, Katy.”

She did not reply, but her hands went over her face, and she cried silently.

“ Yes, I hoped to come bringing my sheaves with me, and tell you as I tell you now: I love you, Katy Keith, with all the prayer and desire there is in my heart. ”

He thought she would answer, would encourage or rebuke him, but she said nothing, and he went on.

“ If I do not believe all things as you do, remember that I believe them as they appear to me — true in every essential sense. But will not he who is all love help me more if we are together, than if I am left to struggle in my unfaitli alone? ”

He held her hand now, and she did not resist. “How can you?” she whispered; “ how can you, when I, I am such a poor little thing? ”

“ Poor! ” he exclaimed.

“I don’t mean that,” she replied; “ I don’t mean poor in money, but just such a poor little thing. When mamma’s money and mine was all gone, I did n’t care. I was almost glad, I was so willing and I felt so strong; and I thought it would be so good and brave to earn our own living, mamma’s and mine. I tried and tried, so hard! you don’t know; and then, somehow, I failed and failed, and things went worse and worse. Now I don't even know where the food is to come from to-morrow.”

She said it, questioning if in all that earnest endeavor and final failure, the fault had not been with her.

And so the gallaut little heart was fairly starved into surrender; but, a traitor in itself, it had long since gone over to the enemy. The engagement lasted just twelve hours. Taddy was of course released, with a story to tell they were too busy to hear, and, after the ceremony, the bridal party set out to visit the Browns, and Katy’s old neighborhood.

“It is very smart in you young folks,” said the contented widow, “ but I don’t see what time you had for courting. You were both so busy.”

“ We did n’t need it, mamma,” said Katy. “ Whenever I went to others in trouble, they put me off with advice; when I went to him, he put his hand to the work and helped me. There may be better men, but none so good to me,”

“Pray God you may always say that, dear wife,” said he; and the carriage rolled on.

The Browns and Katy’s old neighbors were very kind. She said it seemed like getting back to her old happy life by her marriage; and so, measurably, it was.

But they were poor as ever, and had married like foolish young people at the very ebb of their fortunes. They must get back to town and to work. Then they heard Taddy’s story of his singular experiences in the House of Refuge, and news of Katy’s lost fortune.

John Overdo, Esq., found it cheaper to support his dependent relations in offices of the city charities than out of his own pocket. His sister was matron of the House of Refuge. The place was crowded, and Taddy, at night, found no resting-place prepared for him. The matron roughly pointed to a fireplace and bade him lie on the hearth. Making bed and covering of the drug-

get rug, Taddy tried it. But it was a bitter night, and by ten o’clock the fire had gone down. Then he saw the glow of light from an adjoining chamber, and stole in there, it was vacant, a sort of drawing-room near the matron’s bed-chamber, and he crawled under the sofa, and, wrapping his drugget rug about his shoulders, fell asleep.

He thought or dreamed he heard his father’s name; then he was awake. A woman sat on the sofa, a man stood by it.

“Plague take your board of old women ! ” said the matron’s voice. “ I ’ll charge it next month as coals or blankets; but, as I said, I ’ll not buy liquors to keep my body warm out of my own pocket. The city owes it to me for taking care of the vile set.” She stopped a little, and there was the tinkle of a spoon in a glass; and then she went on. “ Go snacks in the Keith girl’s money, and I ’ll give up the place. I don’t know as I ever tasted a better rum punch,” and then there was a sucking noise and a snuffle in the voice; “ you better try some.”

“ Filkerdis got the Keith money,” said Overdo’s voice. “ You know that very well.”

“ Filky-diddle ! ” said the woman. “Your wife got it. You bought the Chestnut Street property in her name in 1863, with money borrowed of Filkerdis, and paid him back out of the Keith girl’s money — he, he, he! Oh! you are a precious pair! I wish I had another punch. Look in the right-hand corner of that cupboard and hand me the bottle and lemons, and I ’ll make two. Yes, the Dutchman’s dead; but I an’t, and if you don’t buy me off between you— Ah! that is good; only I wish the kettle was a little hotter.”

“ Pooh! ” said he, “ Filkerdis would laugh at you. The reprobated devil plays the high game; thought he was doing me a favor to help get Konigratz out of the way, confound him! and actually said I ought to he in the penitentiary for plundering the orphaned granddaughter of my benefactor.”

“ He, he, he! ” laughed the woman, very much tickled at the information. “ He said that, did he? I always did like Harry Filkerdis; ‘ ought to be in the penitentiary’! I declare that’s good, most as good as the punch, — ha, ha, ho! ”

This was an incredible piece of information— Katy’s trusted friend, recommended to her by her dying father, in receipt of her money. “ Possibly,” said Mr. Lorn, “he did not know it was yours. Let us inquire first.”

“ Do,” said she, “ but don’t tell me any more. The law is so confusing about right and wrong, it bewilders me.”

It was easy, once on the track, to trace the draft at the bank from Overdo to Filkerdis. It raised a presumption, amounting to certainty, that the colonel knew whose money it was. But such was the respect of the young people, they would not act till they saw him and heard his explanation.

“ It is very long ago,” said Filkerdis, coolly, “but I think it likely I knew whose draft it was. I remember, I had my doubts of Overdo; I think it likely I knew it.”

“But,” said Lorn, “if you did, you must pay it back. The money was not Overdo’s, and he could convey no title to it.”

“ It is a nice point,” said Filkerdis. “ Suppose you try it. If the law says I had no right to it, of course I will pay it back, with pleasure.”

The coolness of this was stunning.

Lorn did try it, and, knowing the ability that would oppose him, accepted the volunteer aid of his brother, an eminent lawyer. They presented the case in the State courts, dwelling on the common law right to recover stolen property wherever it could be traced. The tracing was not even denied, and they got a verdict.

So Katy won her fortune again!

But wait; this involves Overdo’s bankruptcy, and bankruptcy suits must be removed to the Federal courts. It was removed, and became “ In re Overdo, Catharine Lorn v. Filkerdis.”

Again it was alleged that the money paid to Filkerdis belonged to the plaintiff, and again the defendant in his answer failed to deny that it was her money. The court said: —

“ The principle that a failure to deny a material allegation leaves it confessed, is urged as involving the defendant in the confessed conversion of the plaintiff’s property and destroys his title thereto. But that rule requires that the facts should come within the ordinary scope of the defendant’s business knowledge. It does not presume that he should know whose money it was the bankrupt held as his own and treated as his own. But even with such general knowledge as might provoke inquiry, it will be hard to show why the defendant should refuse a tender of money in the payment of a just debt, made in the ordinary course of business. Money bears no ear-mark, and the draft having mixed with and become a part of the general assets of Mr. Overdo, there is no distinction between that and any other fund in his possession as a general broker. It is liable for his debts, and subject to that superior diligence the law protects. The moral proof of collusion in this case is very strong, and the court regrets it cannot be brought within the operation of the rule. In foro conseientice, the money should be repaid, but the enforcement of the decrees of that higher court must remain in the bosom of the defendant.”

What is the decree worth? Katy’s fortune is lost again.

After that the young people gave it up. Had not the highest court said the friends appointed to her confidence by her father and grandfather had a right to conspire and rob the orphan girl, because no “legal trust” had been established ?

The expensive proceedings sapped their little funds. They had begun poor and got poorer. Lorn had gone through the humiliation of passing from one small grocery to another for necessaries, as the unpaid credits at each were exhausted. He had felt that this was not entirely honest, but what could he do? His character was suffering by it: he had made enemies by the suits, and now the rent was due Judge Groth for the cottage. He applied for the money for Katy’s pony; the coal merchant had taken the benefit of the bankrupt law.

Judge Groth distrained and seized the bed on which the sick widow lay, and turned the family into the streets. Then was proved the friendship of the elder Brown. He came to the city to take the distressed people home. As he sat at the hotel, Judge Groth came by. Now there had been a scene between Lorn and his landlord in which the latter was denounced bitterly. The judge had already noticed or fancied a coolness among his former friends at the bar. He came out now to test it; to see if his character suffered by it. There was a stout country gentleman sitting in front of the hotel, that Judge Groth could not place, but he would begin with him. He had hardly heard the story. He came up and offered his hand, and the elder Brown arose and denounced him savagely in the strong, native vernacular. A hundred people heard it, and the old lawyer slunk away.

But the Browns had their own sorrows. Josh Brown had had another street difficulty. He had only beaten his adversary, a bully and desperado, but every one said that when the man recovered there would be a fight to the death.

There was a kittenish playfulness about young Brown; a love of children and sympathy with them, that made his strangely desperate character more contradictory. Unhappily, at the most impressible age he had gone into the army. He served with distinction; but ne brought home an insensibility to bloodshed; — a man that would not wound your feelings, would shed tears over a story of distress, and would shoot you for a word.

When Katy heard of it, she asked her husband to use his influence over his friend for the mother’s sake. Lorn did try, unavailingly.

“What’s the use?” said Brown. “ Suppose I do promise to let the fellow alone; he won’t let me alone, and as for binding him over, you know what that is; and then, my word is out.”

“ But no law holds you to keep such a promise,” said Lorn; “ let it alone.”

“Oh! that’s law, is it? ” said Brown, indifferently. “I was looking at it in a moral point of view; ” and with that curious defense of his resolution to shoot a fellow-creature, the conversation ended.

Lorn told his wife of his failure, and that evening the little woman, taking her husband’s friend by the arm, led him to that little altar by the verbenabed. What was said there, God and they alone know. Lorn saw his wife and friend walking to and fro in the twilight, and when they returned he knew by his wife’s face that she had prevailed.

“ Well, old woman,” said young Brown, bending over his mother, “I am going to leave you for a little while.”

“ Oh, God bless you, my son, my son; oh, God bless you!” and she fell on her knees in prayer, for she, too, knew what that gentle peacemaker had done.

“ Come away,” said Katy to her husband. “ He goes Tuesday to avoid that man until it is blown over. Oh, Will, how I pity him! ”

“I know you do,” said the proud husband, “ and can I live with God’s angel and still deny him? ”

“Hush! you must n’t talk that way.” And so we leave man and wife together.

The gratitude of the old people had great results; the least of which is this story. Talking with Lorn and his wife, Mr. Brown found them both anxious to remove from that wretched community, but lacking the means. They wanted to come to a new country. “ Choose what stock you like,” said the old farmer; “ but p’r’aps I better do that for you. You can take the spring wagon, and the farm wagon. I have two or three on ’em, you know.

And the old woman ’s got somethin’ in the stockin’. I 'm a Jackson dimocrat, and don’t deposit in no rotten banks.” It was arranged that young Brown should go with them, and a few days’ preparation were all that was necessary.

One evening, the last conversation occurred with which I shall weary the reader over Katy’s law case. Nothing could better illustrate the simplicity of the younger Brown, about his own profession.

“ Why don’t you bone old Overdo for the cash ? ” asked Brown, after they had talked it over.

“ Have n’t we been doing it? ” asked Lorn, good-humoredly. “What else was all this lawing about? ”

“No you have n’t,” said Brown. “ Spos’n I say you owe me five dollars. You say you don’t. Well, we go to law, to see which is right. That’s what law’s for. If it says you do owe me, then I go to you, and say, ‘ Well, old fellow, you see I was right, after all; so just hand over the stamps,’ and you do it of course; because the law said I was right.”

“ Suppose you try it,” yawned Lorn.

“ I think I would do it,” said Brown, meditatively; not at all seeing the absurdity of the proposition. “ Lots o’ fellows would ante up, if you put it right strong about her grandfather’s giving him such a lift, you know.”

“Overdo isn’t one of them,” said Lorn.

As they started to town, young Brown showed the pistols he was delivering to his mother, to remind Katy that he kept his promise.

Lorn was busy that day, seeing and settling with small creditors. And that day Overdo had an interview with Judge Groth.

“ That Brown was to see me to-day,” said the agent.

“ Did he threaten you? ”

“ Oh, no; he was quite friendly; talked about the case, and asked me to pay,” said the broker. “ Of course,

I ’m not a-going to do that.”

“I should think not,” said the old lawyer, with a bitter laugh. “ Have a policeman at hand if he comes again. I would like to get my hands on one of those miserable young scoundrels; ” and he grinds his teeth savagely with the hope.

Mr. Lorn was in court in the afternoon, to say farewell to his friends of the bar. “ Going away, eh ? ” said Costs. “Bad policy to change; stick at it, young fellow. Wife going? ”

“Oh, yes,” said Lorn. “We are going to try a new home and a new country.”

“ Eh, well, well ; I hope you will succeed— hope you’ll succeed. When do you start ? ”

“ Tuesday, sir, if we can be ready,” said Lorn, “ and I think we can. Goodby, sir.”

“ Good-by, sir; good-by. Hope I’ll see you again though,” muttered Costs as the young fellow went off.

Tuesday came, and they were ready. At least Katy and her husband were. Brown had gone to the city with the farm wagon to get what was necessary in the way of provisions. There were tears and blessings and kisses, and they moved off to the junction of the roads where they were to meet their friend. How happy they were! The great burden of that hard city life rolled from them, and a future fair and sweet with youth’s anticipations lay before them.

“What are those two men riding so hard for?” said Katy, who had been looking down the road. As she spoke they came in speaking distance.

“Hallo, Herndon,” said Lorn, recognizing an officer. “What are you beating that poor brute for? He can’t go any faster.”

“Confound him; I don’t want him to, now. I’m one sore from the heel to the crupper, I think, a-chafin’ and a-raspin’ on him,” said the cockney, leveling a blow at the horse’s head.

“Well, don’t beat the poor beast. Katy, we had as well drive on; Brown will overtake us.”

“No you don’t,” said the man; “no you don’t, not by a dern sight, after I gone through all this to nab you; and if that sneak was wuth a stamp, he’d git down an’ hole my hoss, till I sarved ye.”

“ What do you mean, you dog! ” said Lorn angrily, as the man climbed into the wagon; “get out of this, or I’ll brain you with the butt of the whip.”

“ None o’ yer sass,” said the man, showing his pistols. “ I ’m the law, and that there’s p’leesman. You just turn this vehickel, and toddle back. The gal can go whar she dern pleases; I don’t want her;” and he showed a warrant of arrest in Feebil & Costs v. Lorn for lawyers’ fees in the case of Keith v. Overdo.

The reader will remember a certain statutory provision, under which Brown & Lorn seized the money of Overdo in Judge Groth’s hands. Under the same clause, Feebil & Costs now seized the person of William Lorn for the fees of Katy’s lawyers, employed by Earl Groth. There was no alternative. He must go to jail. He tried to persuade his wife to go back to Mr. Brown’s, but “No!” she said; “they may rob and plunder us; they may imprison and kill us; but they shall not separate us. God willing, where you go I will go, and thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.”

It was a terrible situation. The funds Mr. Brown had advanced would not suffice to pay Feebil & Costs’ exorbitant bill, and even if they were accepted in satisfaction, it destroyed that hope and plan of a home in a new country. They did not know what to do; the sulky jailer wished to separate them, but the wife cried and clung so to her husband that even his hard heart was moved. Send for Brown—if they could find him; send for Feebil & Costs, and try to arrange it. Feebil & Costs sent back word to pay and go; they had no other conditions.

Doubting, despairing, praying for release from the life that had proved too hard for them, the poor, foolish young people were beginning to try to cheer one another, when the door opened and in walked Josh Brown.

“How the devil did this happen?” he exclaimed, throwing something into Katy’s lap.

Lorn had begun to explain, when a shriek from Katy called him to her. Fluttering in her fingers was her lost fortune, her $5500!

“ Oh, yes,” said Brown with a blush, “ I got that. I thought I told you.”

“ How — in — the— How did yon do it ? ” gasped Lorn.

“Do it?” said Brown. “Why, just as I told you. I went to Overdo and put it right strong about her grandfather, you know, and he ante’d up, like a little man.”

“Is that all?” asked Lorn, still incredulous.

“ Well, yes; you see I called twice,” said Brown. “ First time he did n’t have it. Of course I expected that, A man don’t have $5500 in his breeches pockets every day. But I put it right strong to him that you were going away to-day, and must have it, and said I’d call again. Well, I did; I put it right strong again, you know, and while we were talking one o’ them fellows came in and handed in the chips, and so Overdo passed ’em over and I took ’em down; and then — and then I told him he was a brick, and we went over and took a drink; two drinks, I believe, and that ’s about all.”

That was all Brown knew, and that story he believes to this day. The reader’s better knowledge of the agent may lead to an acuter judgment. When Brown called the first day, the agent was in terror. He went to his lawyer, and there learned the uselessness of any attempt to put Brown under bonds. “ If you had a cause for it,” said Groth, “it would only provoke him; and you know the governor would remit the fine as soon as he was acquitted for the shooting,— and he certainly would be acquitted.” The agent, knew it; but he had the policeman ready. There was a row in the adjoining drinking saloon, and while the officer went to quell it. Brown walked in. While there, one of the clerks accidentally returned six thousand dollars to be put iu the safe, and the money lay on the desk between them. After Brown had “ put it right strong,” as he said, that the agent must pay — meaning he was morally bound — he slipped from the tall stool, throwing his hand behind him as he did so. The whole terrible antecedent scene, with its remembered threat, witnessed in that very spot, was before the agent’s eyes, and with white lips and shaking nerves lie pushed the uncounted roll to Brown and begged him to “let him alone.” The young man did not observe or regard his agitation, but counting the money pushed back the difference, saying “ there was no interest,” and then pressed his hospitality on the agent. There had been no threat, no incivility. It was in an open office, in business hours, and, though a very unbusinesslike transaction, occurred in a business way. It is questionable if a by-stander, without the key to the matter, would have judged otherwise than Brown, or thought the agent was otherwise moved than by consideration for the orphan daughter of his earliest patron; and to crown all, Brown now had possession of the money. The law would be as ineffectual in getting it out of his grasp, as it had been in unclasping the agent’s knuckles.

The agent was a shrewd rascal, and saw all this. Before Brown left him, leaning over the bar of the drinking saloon, he thanked that gentleman for calling his attention to it; he had been misled by his lawyer, to whom he intrusted the affair, and he hoped Mr. Brown would represent him so to the ladies and the public. Brown did; all the odium fell on Judge Groth. Already that gentleman was suffering in reputation. The terrible punishment administered to him by Lorn exhibited the fact that this lion was all mane and roar; and now any shyster may run over him with impunity. His son gets all the practice, and is the rising member of that family. Not that Earl does not prosper. He has married a very pretty little girl who believes all his marvelous lies and rehearses them.

With five thousand dollars in his pockets, Lorn had no hesitation in asking Brown senior to become security for any debt to Feebil & Costs; but when the cause came for trial, they could prove no authority from Miss Keith, and the judge chose to regard it as volunteer assistance.

Katy and her husband prosecuted their resolution to come to a new home ; and so I came into possession of her story. She is so good to all of us, we cannot regret the misfortunes that brought her among us. We had no church, but in some way her little loghouse has become our chapel. If anybody is sick or sorrowing or in trouble, it is her soft hand and voice that cheer them, and she is known to all the country side for her gentle ways and loving charities. No doubt she is happy with her husband, yet she has little willful ways with him when he goes wrong, and will not hesitate to correct him. If she thinks she has given pain in doing this, she will be very penitent, but still adds: “But I will not promise to do better next time, for if I see you going wrong I must speak ! ” Marriage is not a stopping-place for natures like hers, — though my story stops here, — but. rather the beginning of a newer growth. Happy indeed her husband if she is spared to him in its fruition.

I think sometimes of her case before the mirror, and then I fancy that law courts are not a level reflecting surface, but a bright sphere that distorts the features brought nearer to it; and I prefer my own poor bits of glass.

And now the fiction of incident falls away like the player’s dress, and I know better the character in these strange circumstances in which I have placed it; and I know that memory, not imagination, has been the creator of her virtues. But the reality like the shadow has passed away, and in my little mirror I see only the dusky shadows and the still stars of heaven shining down upon me.

Will Wallace Harney.