“I told her it was wrong for the young to smoke; it stunts their growth and leads to evil companions.  But she wouldn’t listen to me.”

There was a nice regret in his tone.

Miss Juliana ignored him.

“Patricia!” she said, terribly.

But the late Ben Blunt, after the first devastating shock, had been recovering vitality for this ordeal.

“I don’t care!” she announced.  “I’ll run away if I want to!” And again, bitterly, “I don’t care!”

“Run away!”

Juliana fairly bayed the words.  She made running away seem to be something nice people never, never did.

“I don’t care!” repeated the fugitive, dully.

There was a finality about it that gave Juliana pause.  She had expected a crumpling, but the offender did not crumple.  It seemed another tack must be taken.

“Indeed?” she inquired, almost cooingly.  “And may I ask if this absurd young creature was to accompany you on your—­your travels?” She indicated the gowned Wilbur, who would then have gone joyously to his reward, even as had Jonas Whipple.  His look of dumb suffering would have stayed a judge less conscientious.  “I presume this is some young lady of your acquaintance—­one of your little girl friends,” she continued, though it was plain to all that she presumed nothing of the sort.

“He is not!” The look of dumb suffering had stoutened one heart to new courage.  “He’s a very nice little boy, and he gave me these ragged clothes to run away in, and now he’ll have to wear his Sunday clothes.  And you know he’s a boy as well as I do!”

“She made him take a lot of money for it,” broke in the Merle twin.  “I was afraid she wasn’t doing right, but she wouldn’t listen to me, so she gave him the money and I took charge of it for him.”

He beamed virtuously at Miss Juliana, who now rewarded him with a hurried glance of approval.  It seemed to Miss Juliana and to him that he had been on the side of law and order, condemning and seeking to dissuade the offenders from their vicious proceedings.  He felt that he was a very good little boy, indeed, and that the tall lady was understanding it.  He had been an innocent bystander.

Miss Juliana again eyed the skirted Wilbur, and the viewless wind of a smile’s beginning blew across the lower half of her accusing face.  Then she favoured the mere street urchin with a glance of extreme repugnance.

“I shall have to ask all of you to come with me,” she said, terribly.

“Where to?” demanded the chief culprit.

“You know well enough.”

This was all too true.

“Me?” demanded the upright Merle, as if there must have been some mistake.  Surely no right-thinking person could implicate him in this rowdy affair!

“You, if you please,” said Miss Juliana, but she smiled beautifully upon him.  He felt himself definitely aligned with the forces of justice.  He all at once wanted to go.  He would go as an assistant prosecuting attorney.