Page:The Green Bay Tree (1926).pdf/82

 Lily, her face suddenly grave with the knowledge of Judge Weissman's visit, tried to reassure her. "You'll have plenty of opportunity, Ellen. You're still a young girl . . . only eighteen."

"But there's never any money," the girl replied, with an angry gleam in her wide blue eyes. "Papa's always in debt. I'll never get a chance unless I make it myself."

In the little alcove by the gallery, Julia Shane leaning on her stick, talked business with Charles Tolliver. This too was a yearly custom; her nephew, the county treasurer, gave her bits of advice on investments which she wrote down with a silver pencil and destroyed when he had gone. She listened and begged his advice because the giving of it encouraged him and gave him confidence. He was a gentle, honest fellow, and in her cold way she loved him, better even than she loved his wife who was her niece by blood. The advice he gave was mediocre and uninspired; besides Julia Shane was a shrewd woman and more than a match in business matters for most men.

When they had finished this little ceremony, the old woman turned the conversation to the Cyclops Mill scandal.

"And what's to come of it?" she asked. "Are you going to win?"

Charles Tolliver smiled. "We've won already. The case was settled yesterday. The Mill owes the state some five hundred thousand with fines."

Julia Shane again pounded the floor in delight. "A fine Christmas present!" she chuckled. "A fine Christmas present!" And then she did an unaccountable thing. With her thin ringed hand she slapped her nephew on the back.

"You know they came to me," she said, "to get my influence. I told them to go to the Devil! . . . I suppose they tried to bribe you."

The nephew frowned and the gentleness went out of his face. The fine mouth grew stern. "They tried . . . carefully though, so carefully they couldn't be caught at it."

"It will make you trouble. Judge Weissman is a bad enemy. He's powerful."