“Oh, honey! if Miss Marcia was living, she wouldn’t say that!  She would just put her arm round Miss Beryl and tell Mars Lennox:  ’If you help to hang my friend’s child, you shan’t marry my daughter!’ Your ma had pluck enuff to stop him.  Mark what I say; that poor child is innercent, and the Lord will clear up everything some day, and then He will require the blood of them that condemned the innercent.  Suppos’n appearances are agin her?  Wasn’t appearances all agin Joseph’s bruthren when the money and the silver cup was found in their bags, and them afleein home?  And if the ’Gyptian lie-yers could have got their claws on that case, don’t you know they would have proved them innercent boys guilty, and a hung em?  Oh, I am afeerd of Mars Lennox, for he favors his pa mightily; he has got the keenest scent of all the pack; and he went up yonder, and ’cused, and ’bused, and browbeat and aggervated and tormented that poor, helpless young creetur,’till she fell down in a dead faint on the jail floor; and sence then, the Doctor says her mind is done clean gone.  Don’t get mad with me, Miss Leo; I am bound to clare my conscience, and now I have done all I could, I am gwine to leave my poor young mistiss’ child in God’s hands, and in yourn, Miss Leo; and when I come back, you must gim’me an account of your stewudship.  You are enuff like Miss Marcia, not to shirk your duty; and as you do, by that pussecuted child, I pray the Lord to do by you.”

She seized Leo’s hand, kissed it, and left the room.

For some moments Leo sat, with one finger between the creamy leaves of her favorite book, but the charm was broken; her thoughts wandered far from the stories of Apuleius, and the oration of Aurelius, and after mature deliberation, she put aside the volume and rang the library bell.

“Justine, is Mrs. Graham here?”

“She is coming now; I see the carriage at the gate.”

“Do not invite her into Aunt Patty’s room, until I have seen her. 
Tell Andrew to harness Gypsy, and bring my phaeton to the door; and
Justine, carry my felt hat, driving gloves and fur jacket to Aunt
Patty’s room.”

Confined to her bed by a severe attack of her chronic foe, inflammatory rheumatism, Miss Dent had sent for her dearest friend and faithful colleague in church work, Mrs. Graham, who came to spend a day and night, and discuss the affairs of the parish.

“Aunt Patty, Mrs. Graham is in the parlor, and as I am well aware you can both cheerfully dispense with my society for the present, I am going into town.  Dyce Darrington has been here, and I have promised to go and see that unfortunate girl who is in prison.”

“Leo Gordon, you don’t mean to tell me that you are going into the penitentiary!”

“Why not?”

“It is highly improper for a young lady to visit such places, and I am astonished that you should feel any inclination to see the countenances of the depraved wretches herded there.  I totally disapprove of such an incomprehensible freak.”