nd a
black lettered sign above, "Lewis Rand, Attorney-at-Law."

Mrs. Selden, putting her head out of the window, directed a small negro,
lounging near, to raise the knocker below the sign; but before she could
be obeyed, the door opened and Rand himself came quickly down the steps.
"Come, come!" he said; "I knew it was your day in town, and I was
wondering if you were going by without a word."

"Don't I always stop? A habit is a habit. We are all miserable sinners,
and the world can't get on without lawyers. I want to ask you how I'm to
keep old Tom Carfax off my land. There is no one with you?"

"No one. Mocket has ridden over to North Garden, and I've just dismissed
a deputation from Milton." As he spoke, he opened the coach door and
assisted his old friend to alight.

Together they went into the office, which was a cool little place, with
a climbing rose at the windows, a bare floor, and a dim fragrance of
law-books. The shade was grateful after the August heat and glare. Mrs.
Selden, seated in a capacious wooden chair, wielded her turkey fan and
looked about her at the crowded book-shelves, the mass of papers held
down on desk and deal table by pieces of iron ore, the land maps on the
wall, the corner ledger and high stool, the cupboard whose opened door
disclosed bottles and glasses, and the blush roses just without the two
small windows. "I like the law," she remarked. "There's a deal of
villainy in it, no doubt, but that's a complaint to which all ways of
making a living are liable. Even a shoemaker may be a villain. How does
it feel to be a great lawyer, Lewis?"

He smiled. "Am I a great one?"

"You should know best, but it's what men call you. What was your
deputation from Milton? About the governorship?"

"Yes."

"What did you say?"

"I thanked them for the honour they did me, and told them that I had
declined the nomination."

"You have declined it! Why?"

He smiled again. "You used to preach contentment when I was a boy and
you heard me rage out against my father. Well--shall I not rest content
with being a great lawyer?"

His old neighbour regarded him keenly above her turkey-feather fan.
"Lewis Rand, Lewis Rand," she said at last, "I wish I knew your end."

He laughed. "Do you mean my aim in life, or my last hour?"

"The one," said his visitor sharply, "will be according to the other. We
all wander through a wood into some curious place at last. You're the
kind of person one thinks of as