ebb smiled.

"The greatest privilege of my life, ma'am!" cried the general, his face
flushing and his eyes growing round with agitation.

In the end they gained their point, and Mrs. Webb consented, but with a
reluctance of reserve which caused the general to choke with
embarrassment and the judge to become speechless from perplexity. When
they rose to leave both thanked her with effusion and both bowed
themselves out as gratefully as if it were a royal drawing-room and they
had received the honours of knighthood.

"She is a remarkable woman!" exclaimed the general, wiping his eyes on
his white silk handkerchief as they descended the steps. "A most unusual
woman! Why, I feel positively unworthy to sit in her presence. Her
manner brings all my past indiscretions to mind. It is an honour to have
such a character in the community, sir!"

The judge acquiesced silently.

The interview had tried his Epicurean fortitude, and he was wondering if
it would be necessary to repeat the call before Christmas.

"If Julius Webb had lived she would have made a man of him," continued
the general enthusiastically, the purple flush slowly fading from his
flabby face. "A creature who could live with that woman and not be made
a man of wouldn't be human; he'd be a hound. There is dignity in every
inch of her, sir. I will allow no man to question my respect for our
immortal Lee--but if Jane Webb had been the commander of our armies, we
should be standing now upon Confederate soil--"

"Or upon the ashes of it," suggested the judge, adding apologetically,
"she is indeed a woman in a thousand."

He held it to be a lack of courtesy to dissent from praise of any woman
whose chastity was beyond impeachment, as he held it to be an absence of
propriety to unite in admiration of one who was wanting in the supremest
of the feminine virtues. His code was an obvious one, and he had never
seen cause to depart from it.

"I hope the boy will be worthy of her," he said. "It is a good name that
he bears."

The general took off his straw hat and mopped his brow.

"Worthy of her!" he exclaimed. "He's got to be worthy of her, sir. If he
takes any notion in his head not to be, I'll thrash him within an inch
of his life. Let him try it, the young scamp!"

The judge laughed easily, having regained his self-possession. "Well,
well, there's no telling," he said; "but he's as bright as a steel trap.
I wish Tom had half his sense." Then he turned past the