ive by their wits when they
can, and by worse weapons when their wits fail them, that we old
law-doctors know just as well as the medical counsellors know the marks
of disease in a man's face. Dr. Kittredge looks at a man and says he is
going to die; I look at another man and say he is going to be hanged, if
nothing happens. I don't say so of this one, but I don't like his looks.
I wonder Dudley Veneer takes to him so kindly."

"It's all for Elsie's sake," said Miss Thornton. "I feel quite sure of
that. He never does anything that is not meant for her in some way. I
suppose it amuses her to have her cousin about the house. She rides a
good deal since he has been here. Have you seen them galloping about
together? He looks like my idea of a Spanish bandit on that wild horse
of his."

"Possibly he has been one,--or is one," said the Judge,--smiling as men
smile whose lips have often been freighted with the life and death of
their fellow-creatures. "I met them riding the other day. Perhaps Dudley
is right, if it pleases her to have a companion. What will happen,
though, if he makes love to her? Will Elsie be easily taken with such a
fellow? You young folks are supposed to know more about these matters
than we middle-aged people."

"Nobody can tell. Elsie is not like anybody else. The girls who have
seen most of her think she hates men, all but 'Dudley,' as she calls her
father. Some of them doubt whether she loves him. They doubt whether
she can love anything human, except perhaps the old black woman who has
taken care of her since she was a baby. The village people have the
strangest stories about her; you know what they call her?"

She whispered three words in her father's ear. The Judge changed color
as she spoke, sighed deeply, and was silent as if lost in thought for a
moment.

"I remember her mother," he said, "so well! A sweeter creature never
lived. Elsie has something of her in her look, but those are not her
mother's eyes. They were dark, but soft, as in all I ever saw of her
race. Her father's are dark too, but mild, and even tender, I should
say. I don't know what there is about Elsie's,--but do you know, my
dear, I find myself curiously influenced by them? I have had to face a
good many sharp eyes and hard ones,--murderers' eyes and pirates',--men
who had to be watched in the bar, where they stood on trial, for fear
they should spring on the prosecuting officers like tigers,--but I n