“And the girls were staggered, I suppose,” chuckled Berty.
“Staggered and confounded. Then Airy says they looked her over. Having foreseen something of this, in a dim and masculine way, I had taken care to provide my protégée with a carefully selected wardrobe. Her clothes were not showy, but they were what you women call elegant. I suppose you will think it the foolish whim of an old man when I tell you that I myself interviewed the dressmaker who fitted Airy out. I told her to line her little garments with the best of satin.”
Berty leaned against the stable doorway and laughed long and irrepressibly. “Well, Judge, you are the greatest man—”
“And I gave her a gold watch,” he went on, with twinkling eyes—“a very little one, but very exquisite—and a chain of wonderful workmanship.”
“You dear man!” exclaimed Berty, impulsively. “You did all this not to encourage vanity, but to spare a child’s feelings.”
“Well,” said the Judge, modestly, “I did not plan to deceive Airy’s schoolmates, but the little witches had heard of my other protégée, Bethany, and her rich grandfather, so Airy says they received her truthful account of herself as the most absurd kind of fairy tale. They shouted with laughter over her laconic description of the penury to which she had been accustomed. Then she was received into the inner circle as a kind of mystery. She says that the girls think her a foreigner, on account of her dark complexion, and this opinion is heightened by her poor English. The most accredited rumor is that she is an Italian princess, stolen from a magnificent castle by gypsies.”
Berty was convulsed with amusement. “And how does Airy take all this?”
“Philosophically,” laughed the Judge. “Really she is an astonishing girl. Details don’t concern her as much as they do most people. She grasps the whole. Dress and environment are secondary things with her, things not to be disregarded, but not to be overestimated. The primary thing is to get an education. Then she wishes to earn money, and repay me for what I have done for her, and also to support her family—a heavy burden for such young shoulders.”
“I wonder what she is going to be when she grows up?” remarked Berty, meditatively.
“Now that brings me to something that I wish to ask your advice about,” said the Judge. “Ever since the attempt was made to steal Bethany from us I have been thinking that I need some young person to look after my children—particularly the two little girls.”