here the dismantlers' picks
were already breaking up the ancient mortar, but had followed the
personality of the man into these new pretentious quarters. The
retiring-room already gave forth an alluring odor of law books and
document files, the floor already had been forced into use to bear up
little piles of transcripts of evidence, tin document boxes and piles of
books, open at reference pages, occupying obscure corners. The Judge's
black silk hat was in its familiar place, resting with the opening
upward, on the old black walnut desk which its owner had affectionately
brought with him, and which made a strange and cynical contrast with the
mahogany woodwork and new rug.

"Come in," he said, and with one of his long-fingered hands he made a
gesture toward the opposite side of the room and spoke my name and that
of another.

She was there! I had never seen her before. She was there. I had no
thought of her ancestry, her wealth, or her position. She was there, and
into my throat came something I had never felt before, into my face a
suffusion of hot blood, into my lungs a long-held inhalation of breath.

Sometime you may see her. She has changed a little. But then she was
twenty-two, and the simplicity of her attire seemed to be at once the
propriety of nature and the infinite skill of art. She wore a black
gown, without ornamentation, and a black hat of graceful form. Not a
harsh or stiff fol-de-rol was about her anywhere. You will pardon me for
this detail. But, oh, she was so different from the others. She was a
picture there among the law books.

The most attractive thing there can be in a woman is that combination of
youth, innocence, glowing health, modesty. The perfect skin, with its
grapelike, dusty bloom which shows where the collar droops at the front
of the neck, the even lashes, from under which the deep eyes gaze out at
you half timidly, the brave, honest uplifting of a rounded chin, the
undulations of fine lungs, the almost imperceptible movement of
restrained vigor in a poised, delicate, graceful figure, the gentleness
and tenderness of a voice which at the same time suggests refinement and
decision and strength, the absence of any effort to make an impression,
either in manner or dress,--these are rare and beautiful attributes in
an age when female children hatch out as artful women without the
intervening period of girlhood. After all, the best men of us will not
choose one of these modern maidens w