yer and he knew it (if he had married he might
have been Chief Justice). Then he turned the corner and entered
the street of jurisprudence and the gaol. About midway he reached
the staircase opening from the sidewalk; to his rooms above.

He was not poor and he could have lived richly had he wished. But
when a man does not marry there are so many other things that he
never espouses; and he was not wedded to luxury. As he lighted the
chandelier over the centre-table in his sitting room, the light
revealed an establishment every article of which, if it had no
virtues, at least possessed habits: certainly everything had its
own way. He put his hat and cane on the table, not caring to go
back to the hatrack in his little hall, and seated himself in his
olive morocco chair. As he did so, everything in the room--the
chairs, the curtains, the rugs, the card-table, the punch-bowl, the
other walking-sticks, and the rubbers and umbrellas---seemed to say
in an affectionate chorus: "Well, now that you are in safe for the
night, we feel relieved. So good night and pleasant dreams to you,
for we are going to sleep;" and to sleep they went.

The gas alone flared up and said, "I'll stay up with him."

He drew out and wiped his glasses and reached for the local Sunday
paper, his Sunday evening Bible. He had read it in the morning,
but he always gleaned at night: he met so many of his friends by
reading their advertisements. But to-night he spread it across his
knees and turning to the table lifted the top of a box of cigars,
an orderly responsive family; the paper slipped to the floor and
lay forgotten behind his heels.

He leaned back in the chair with his cigar in his mouth and his
eyes directed toward the opposite wall, where in an oval frame hung
the life-size portrait of an old bulldog. The eyes were blue and
watery and as full of suffering as a seats; from the extremity of
the lower jaw a tooth stood up like a shoemaker's peg; and over the
entire face was stamped the majesty, the patience, and the manly
woes of a nature that had lived deeply and too long. The Judge's
eyes rested on this comrade face.

The events of the day had left him troubled. Any sermon on the
prodigal always touches men; even if it does not prick their
memories, it can always stir their imaginations. Whenever he heard
one, his mind went back to the years when she who afterwards became
Rowan's mother had cast him off, so settling life for him