dear, I find myself curiously influenced by them? I have had to face a
good many sharp eyes and hard ones,--murderers' eyes and pirates',--men
who had to be watched in the bar, where they stood on trial, for fear
they should spring on the prosecuting officers like tigers,--but I never
saw such eyes as Elsie's; and yet they have a kind of drawing virtue
or power about them,--I don't know what else to call it: have you never
observed this?"

His daughter smiled in her turn.

"Never observed it? Why, of course, nobody could be with Elsie Venner
and not observe it. There are a good many other strange things about
her: did you ever notice how she dresses?"

"Why, handsomely enough, I should think," the Judge answered. "I suppose
she dresses as she likes, and sends to the city for what she wants. What
do you mean in particular? We men notice effects in dress, but not much
in detail."

"You never noticed the colors and patterns of her dresses? You never
remarked anything curious about her ornaments? Well! I don't believe you
men know, half the time, whether a lady wears a nine-penny collar or a
thread-lace cape worth a thousand dollars. I don't believe you know a
silk dress from a bombazine one. I don't believe you can tell whether
a woman is in black or in colors, unless you happen to know she is a
widow. Elsie Venner has a strange taste in dress, let me tell you. She
sends for the oddest patterns of stuffs, and picks out the most curious
things at the jeweller's, whenever she goes to town with her father.
They say the old Doctor tells him to let her have her way about such
matters. Afraid of her mind, if she is contradicted, I suppose. You've
heard about her going to school at that place,--the 'Institoot,' as
those people call it? They say she's bright enough in her way,--has
studied at home, you know, with her father a good deal, knows some
modern languages and Latin, I believe: at any rate, she would have
it so,--she must go to the 'Institoot.' They have a very good female
teacher there, I hear; and the new master, that young Mr. Langdon, looks
and talks like a well-educated young man. I wonder what they 'll make of
Elsie, between them!"

So they talked at the Judge's, in the calm, judicial-looking
mansion-house, in the grave, still library, with the troops of wan-hued
law-books staring blindly out of their titles at them as they talked,
like the ghosts of dead attorneys fixed motionless and speechless, each
with a