MARTHA LACEY

Judge Trent was sitting at his desk scowling at his work with concentration when his a.s.sistant tiptoed to his side, his face sternly repressed and his eyes dancing.

"Miss Martha Lacey wishes to see you, Judge."

The latter looked up with such suddenness as to endanger the situation of the high hat. "Who?" he demanded.

"Sh!" advised Dunham. "Miss Martha Lacey."

Judge Trent placed his hand on his a.s.sistant's arm as he stared up at him. "I guess you got the name wrong, Boy," he returned, in a hushed tone.

The young lawyer shook his head solemnly, but his lips refused solemnity. "Miss Martha Lacey," he repeated slowly.

His senior frowned. "These offices are badly planned, Dunham, badly planned. There is no back entrance."

"Exit, do you mean?" asked the other.

"What are you doing in here?" demanded the judge sternly, but careful not to raise his voice. "It was your place to find out her business."

"That's what I thought. In fact, I told her so."

"Well, what is it, then? You go back. I empower you to act." As Judge Trent spoke he pushed his young colleague with one bony hand.

"She won't have me," gurgled Dunham in a whisper. "She's going to wait for you till the last trump, and while she's waiting she says she'll revise Blackstone."

The judge did not smile. He suddenly relaxed throughout his slight frame. "That's Martha," he replied, "you haven't made any mistake. And she'd do it. Very capable woman. Very capable woman. Dunham, I want you to understand," he continued, as he rose and straightened himself, "that I respect that lady very highly."

"Oh, I do understand," responded Dunham. "She's a bright, observant woman. She found the chairs dusty." He drew in his breath in a noiseless whistle.

The little man looked up alertly under his s.h.a.ggy brows. "They _were_ dusty, I dare say. You cleaned one for her, eh?"

"Yes, with my handkerchief. She didn't like it."

"Oh, no, she wouldn't like that. You are quite sure there'd be no use in your going back again and trying to find out what she--a--eh?"

"Aren't _you_ quite sure?" Dunham stood with his feet apart and a broad grin on his countenance.

The judge rose and shook himself.

"I've got those papers ready, Dunham. It might be well for you to take them over to the office and register them; and as you pa.s.s through you may ask Miss Lacey to step in here."

John Dunham composed his countenance, took his hat and the papers, and started on his errand.

Entering the outer room, he paused before Miss Lacey to give his message, and she lifted a small paper parcel that lay in her lap.

"Don't be worried about your handkerchief," she said. "I'm going to take it home and wash it."

"Oh, I beg you won't trouble yourself," exclaimed the young man.

"I shall. You soiled it for me."

Dunham bit his lip. The query flitted through his mind as to whether Miss Lacey had ever been successfully contradicted.

"When Sir Walter Raleigh flung down his coat for a queen to walk upon, history doesn't say that Elizabeth sent it to the dry-cleaners," he remarked.

"That just shows how different two old maids can act," returned Miss Lacey.

Dunham laughed and bowed. "I don't believe the difference would continue throughout," he said. "I fancy you and Queen Bess have lots of points in common."

With this he took his departure, and Martha Lacey rose and pa.s.sed into the inner room where Judge Trent waited, grimly wondering at that burst of laughter which he saw reflected on his visitor's lips as she entered.

She advanced and shook hands with him. "How do you do, Calvin? That isn't any fool you've taken into your office."

"Won't you have a chair?" offering Dunham's. "I wasn't looking for 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, pa.s.sing 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.