"Oh, don't bring that up!" Mary cried. "You know as well as I do how that came about."
"Oh yes, but, nevertheless, you and he were together, and, as I said, he is an attractive man. Right now you are defending him. Think of that, daughter, you are defending a man we know absolutely nothing about, and who I must frankly say has not treated our hospitality with due respect in not producing proper credentials. The profession he was in before he came to us was a queer one for an educated gentleman. You must admit that. Your future and your happiness is in my hands, and a young lady with the ancestry you have had ought to look—"
"Don't mention my ancestry, father," Mary broke in. "It interests you, but it does not interest me. Life, as it is, is too grim and earnest to spend any part of it in digging up the dry bones of dead lords and ladies."
"Blood will tell," Rowland frowned in sudden displeasure. "We are poor and have our troubles, but we know who we are. Yes, I must be more careful with you, my dear. And if Mr. Brown cannot show who and what he is he doesn't deserve my friendship nor your faith in him. Women are sentimental. Whatever they want to be right they think is right. The sheriff has set me to thinking. He just as good as told me that I was crazy to harbor this young man under the circumstances. I won't say anything to Mr. Brown, but I hope you will be careful. You must not let it be said—if the sheriff does arrest him—that you were ever anything more to the young man than—"
"I know nothing wrong about Mr. Brown," Mary broke out, now flushed with anger, "and I know much that is good—much that I cannot tell you. I do not intend to let a coarse man like that sheriff influence my opinion in the slightest. He doesn't know Mr. Brown and I do."
"Still, you must be careful," Rowland urged.
"I don't know what you mean," Mary said, stubbornly. "I don't know as I want to know. I shall have to treat Mr. Brown as my conscience tells me to treat him. I know what he has done and is doing for us, and that is enough for me."
"I know, but you must be careful," her father repeated. "Even the boys must be put on their guard."
"On their guard, indeed!" the girl sniffed. "If you haven't eyes to see that Mr. Brown is making men of them, I have. If you thought as much about your children as you do about your forefathers you would have noticed the wonderful change in their characters that Mr. Brown has brought about by his talks and his example."
"I take your rebuke, my dear, because in a way it is deserved. I have been too much absorbed of late in my history, but the book is about done now, and I shall have more time for other matters. If Mr. Brown has helped the boys I shall be grateful for it; still, good deeds sometimes are done by persons who, to say the least, are unsafe. That reminds me. A letter I once wrote to a branch of the Rowland family happened to reach a man by the name who was serving a long term in prison, and the fact is that he gave me more substantial help in what I wanted than many others who had their freedom and whose respectability was not questioned."