Judge North put the deeds in his pocket. "I will take this matter up at once," he said. "This should be valuable property. Bernard would never have allowed it to fall into the hands of Lee's child if he could have used it himself, but he knew that he dared not claim it."
Turning to Nina he laid his hand on her head.
"And so, after all the search of years I have found my niece at last! I had almost believed I never should do so. And then," breaking into a genial smile, "I accept an invitation to dinner with my young friend here, and find my beautiful young niece—the very image of the little sister I lost and for whom I had so grieved—awaiting me!——"
He put out his arms, and Nina, with a glad little cry, ran into them.
"Of course you must come and live with me now——" he began, but got no farther, for from the whole Peniman family there rose a cry of simultaneous protest.
Nina, blushing rosy red, turned a shy glance on Joe.
He at once came to the rescue. Crossing the room he laid his hand upon the Judge's shoulder.
"I—a—I hope you won't mind, judge," he said awkwardly, "but—but the truth is that Nina has just promised to—to live the rest of her life with me."
The Judge turned and looked at him, then burst into a roar of laughter.
"Well, well, well!" he cried, "to think that the young man I have liked so much would steal such a march as that on me! So you have promised to live the rest of your life with this young chap, have you, niece? And I suppose you'd much rather do that than come live with a lonely old man like me?"