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Harriet gave a little cry of shocked surprise. "Oh, Jimmy," she cried, laying her
hand upon his arm. "Oh, Jimmy, I am so sorry!" It was the first time that she had
ever addressed him by his given name, but there seemed nothing strange or
unusual in the occurrence.
"She was such a good little girl," said Harriet.
It was strange that so many should use these same words in connection with
Edith Hudson, and even this girl, so far removed from the sphere in which Little
Eva had existed and who knew something of her past, could yet call her "good."
It gave Jimmy a new insight into the sweetness and charity of Harriet Holden's
character. "Yes," he said, "her soul and her heart were good and pure."
"
She believed so in you," said the girl. "She thought you were the best man who
ever lived. She told me that you were the only really good man she had ever
known, and her confidence and belief in you were contagious. You will probably
never know all that she did for you. It was really she that imbued my father and
his attorney with a belief in your innocence, and it was she who influenced the
Lizard to take the stand in your behalf. Yes, she was a very good friend."
"And you have been a good friend," said Jimmy. "In the face of the same
circumstances that turned Miss Compton against me you believed in me. Your
generosity made it possible for me to be defended by the best attorney in Chicago,
but more than all that to me has been your friendship and the consciousness of
your sympathy at a time when, above all things, I needed sympathy. And now,
after all you have done for me I came to ask still more of you."
"What do you want?" she asked.
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