"Who is it?"

"It 's a girl named Minty Brown from your home."

His face turned brick-red with fear and shame. "Minty Brown!" he
stammered.

Had that girl told all and undone him? But Hattie was going on about her
work and evidently knew nothing.

"Oh, you need n't pretend you don't know her," she went on banteringly.
"She says you were great friends down South, so I 've invited her to
supper. She wants to see you."

"To supper!" he thought. Was she mocking him? Was she restraining her
scorn of him only to make his humiliation the greater after a while? He
looked at her, but there was no suspicion of malice in her face, and he
took hope.

"Well, I 'd like to see old Minty," he said. "It 's been many a long day
since I 've seen her."

All that afternoon, after going to the barber-shop, Joe was driven by a
tempest of conflicting emotions. If Minty Brown had not told his story,
why not? Would she yet tell, and if she did, what would happen? He
tortured himself by questioning if Hattie would cast him off. At the
very thought his hand trembled, and the man in the chair asked him if he
had n't been drinking.

When he met Minty in the evening, however, the first glance at her