as her manner caused
Hetty to look up reproachfully.
    »These are high words to come from Thomas Hutter's darter, as Thomas Hutter
lies dying before her eyes,« retorted Hurry.
    »God be praised for that! - whatever reproach it may bring on my poor
mother, I am not Thomas Hutter's daughter.«
    »Not Thomas Hutter's darter! - Don't disown the old fellow in his last
moments, Judith, for that's a sin the Lord will never overlook. If you're not
Thomas Hutter's darter, whose darter be you?«
    This question rebuked the rebellious spirit of Judith, for, in getting rid
of a parent, whom she felt it was a relief to find she might own she had never
loved, she overlooked the important circumstance that no substitute was ready to
supply his place.
    »I cannot tell you, Harry, who my father was,« she answered more mildly; »I
hope he was an honest man, at least.«
    »Which is more than you think was the case, with old Hutter? Well, Judith,
I'll not deny that hard stories were in circulation consarning Floating Tom, but
who is there that does n't get a scratch, when an inimy holds the rake? There's
them that say hard things of me, and even you, beauty as you be, do n't always
escape.«
    This was said with a view to set up a species of community of character
between the parties, and, as the politicians are wont to express it, with
ulterior intentions. What might have been the consequences with one of Judith's
known spirit, as well as her assured antipathy to the speaker, it is not easy to
say, for, just then, Hutter gave unequivocal signs that his last moment was
nigh. Judith and Hetty had stood by the dying bed of their mother, and neither
needed a monitor to warn them of the crisis, and every sign of resentment
vanished from the face of the first. Hutter opened his eyes, and even tried to
feel about him with his hands, a sign that sight was failing. A minute later,
his breathing grew ghastly; a pause totally without respiration followed; and,
then, succeeded the last, long drawn sigh, on which the spirit is supposed to
quit the body. This sudden termination of the life of one who had hitherto
filled so important a place in the narrow scene on which he had been an actor,
put an end to all discussion.
    The day