d in discord above the sobbing
music of an orchestra, thought the judge. The firelight was better for a
mood such as his.

One can see farther back by the soft glow of wood coals, leaning over
and looking into them, than under the gleam of the strongest lamp. Judge
Maxwell had a long vista behind him to review, and it seemed to him that
night that it was a picture with more shadow than gleam. This day's
events had set him upon the train of retrospection, of moody thought.

He had seen that boy, Joe Newbolt, leap out of the obscurity of his life
into the place of heroes, as he would have had his own son do, if he
could have kept him by his side and fashioned his life. But that boy was
gone; long years ago he had left him, and none had come after him to
stand in his place. His little, worn books, which he used to sprawl upon
the floor and read, were treasured there on their sacred shelf behind
the bookcase glass. The light had failed out of the eyes which had found
wonders in them, more than thirty years ago.

The lad's mother had followed him; nobody remained to the judge now out
of those days of his struggle and slow-mounting hope, save old Hiram,
his negro man, a family servitor since the times of slavery, and he was
trembling on the limb to fall.

Yes, that was the way that he would have had his own boy stand, true to
a trust, faithful in his honor, even under the beam of the gallows-tree;
stand as that lad Joe Newbolt had stood, unschooled though he was in
everything but that deep sense of duty devolving on one born free. Such
nobility was the peculiar birthright of the true American.

Scarcely behind Joe Newbolt stood that hitherto weak woman, Ollie Chase.
It called for courage to do what she had done. She had only to keep her
peace, and hide whatever pity she felt and pain she suffered on account
of the lad who stood ready to sacrifice his life for her, to proceed
upon her way clean in the eyes of men. She must have endured the
tortures of hidden fires through those weeks of uncertainty and
suspense, thought he.

Yes, Ollie Chase had her own nobility; the laurel was due her poor,
smirched brow, just as much as it was to Joe Newbolt's lofty forehead.
Contrition doubtless played its part in driving her to open confession,
and the pain of concealment must have been hard to bear. But there was
an underlying nobility in that woman's heart which had urged her on
stronger than all. It is a spark in the breast of eve