r a half-hour,
giving uncertain glances towards the hall door, as if he expected the
advent of an incarnate thunderbolt. In the afternoon he sent over a
bottle of his best Madeira as a peace-offering. Mrs. Webb acknowledged
the Madeira, not the truce. The following day General Battle called upon
the judge and requested in half-hearted tones the withdrawal of Amos
Burr's son. He looked excited and somewhat alarmed, and the judge
recognised the hand of the player.

"My dear Tom Battle," he said soothingly, "you do not wish the poor
child any harm."

"'Fore God, I don't, George," stammered the general.

"He's a quiet, unoffending lad."

The general fingered his limp cravat with agitated plump fingers. "I
never passed him on the road in my life that he didn't touch his hat,"
he admitted, "and once he took a stone out of the gray mare's shoe."

"He has a brain and he has ambition. Think what it is to be born in a
lower class and to have a mind above it."

The general's great chest trembled.

"I wouldn't injure the little chap for the world George; on my soul, I
wouldn't."

"I know it, Tom."

"My own great-grandfather Battle raised himself, George."

The judge waved the fact aside as insignificant.

"Of course, Mrs. Webb is a woman," he said with sexual cynicism, "and
her views are naturally prejudiced. You can't expect a woman to look at
things as coolly as we do, Tom."

The general brightened.

"'Tisn't nature," he declared. "You can't expect a woman to go against
nature, sir."

"And Mrs. Webb, though an unusual woman (the general nodded), is still a
woman."

The general nodded again, though less emphatically.

"On my soul, she's wonderful!" he exclaimed. "Why, damme, sir, if I had
that woman to brace me up I shouldn't need a julep."

And the judge, flinching from his friend's profanity, called Caesar to
bring in the decanters.

Some time later the general left and Mr. Burwell appeared, to be met
and dispatched by the same arguments.

"Naturally my instincts prompt me to side with an unprotected widow,"
said Mr. Burwell.

"No Virginian could feel otherwise," admitted the judge in the slightly
pompous tone in which he alluded to his native State.

"But as I said to my wife," continued Mr. Burwell with convincing
earnestness, "these matters had best be left to men. There is no need
for our wives and daughters to be troubled by them. It is for us, who
are acquainted with the world and who have had