weakness had returned. Meredith was shaken with remorse because he had let
him wander around in the damp night air with no one to look after him.




CHAPTER XVII


HELEN'S TOAST

Judge Briscoe was sitting out under the afternoon sky with his chair
tilted back and his feet propped against the steps. His coat was off, and
Minnie sat near at hand sewing a button on the garment for him, and she
wore that dreamy glaze that comes over women's eyes when they sew for
other people.

From the interior of the house rose and fell the murmur of a number of
voices engaged in a conversation, which, for a time, seemed to consist of
dejected monosyllables; but presently the judge and Minnie heard Helen's
voice, clear, soft, and trembling a little with excitement. She talked
only two or three minutes, but what she said stirred up a great commotion.
All the voices burst forth at once in ejaculations--almost shouts; but
presently they were again subdued and still, except for the single soft
one, which held forth more quietly, but with a deeper agitation, than any
of the others.

"You needn't try to bamboozle me," said the judge in a covert tone to his
daughter, and with a glance at the parlor window, whence now issued the
rumble of Warren Smith's basso. "I tell you that girl would follow John