The Judge looked cautiously over his shoulder as if he were afraid the horses and the cow might be eavesdropping.
“I do not like her, I do not like her,” he said, seriously.
Berty burst into a merry peal of laughter. “No one does, yet. Why is it she makes us all stand round?”
“I don’t like her,” repeated the Judge, cautiously, “and yet I find myself in the presence of a very strong young personality when I am with her. That strength will be expended in some way. If I can train it, perhaps I ought to.”
“She is very clever, very peculiar, and very fascinating,” said Berty, succinctly. “She could twist me round her little finger if she wished to, but she doesn’t. Her ideals are not mine.”
“She has affection, too,” said the Judge, warmly. “She came rushing in the morning after Bethany’s attempted capture by those women and alarmed me by her demonstrations of anger and alarm.”
“I suppose she does not come here very much now that she is at Miss Featherby’s.”
“She comes whenever she is allowed to go out. If it is to go downtown with a teacher she takes us in on her way.”
Berty laughed again. “You will have to adopt her too, Judge; that is, if you have no scruples about lifting her out of her sphere.”
“I have scruples, but what am I to do? Is not ambition a good thing? Mrs. Tingsby does not want to rise, Airy does. I have talked very seriously to the child. I have explained to her that her wild ambition is going to create a gulf between her and her family. She says it won’t.”