So far as
the special administrator was concerned, this would end his duties in
the premises, seeing that other than this sum there was no property to
be divided.

The little house at the foot of Yazoo Street belonged to the widow. It
had been deeded to her at the time of its purchase years and years
before, and she had been a copartner in the undertaking of paying off
the mortgage upon it by dribs and bitlets which represented hard work
and the strictest economy. Naturally her husband had made no will.
Probably it had never occurred to him that he would have any property to
bequeath to anyone. But by virtue of his having died under a street car
rather than in his bed he was worth more dead than ever, living, he had
dreamed of being worth. He was worth eight thousand dollars in cash. So,
as it turned out, he had left something other than a name for sober
reliability and a reputation for paying his debts. And no doubt, in that
bourn to which his spirit had been translated out of a battered body,
his spirit rejoiced that the manner of his taking off had been as it
was.

But if the special administrator rested content in the thought that his
share in the transaction practically would end with but few added
details, his superior, the chief judicial officer of the district, felt
called upon to take certain steps on his own initiative solely, and
without consulting any person regarding the advisability of his action.
It was characteristic of Judge Priest that he should move promptly in
the matter. To a greater degree it also was characteristic of him that,
setting out for a visit to one of no social account whatsoever, he
should garb himself with more care than he might have shown had he been
going to see one of those mighty ones who sit in the high places. In a
suit of rumply but spotless white linen, and carrying in one hand his
best tape-edged palm-leaf fan, he rather suggested a plump old mandarin
as, on that same evening of the day when the street-railway company
effected settlement, he knocked at the front door of the cottage of the
Widow Millsap.

She was in and she was alone. She was one of those women who always are
in and nearly always are alone. Immediately, then, they sat in her front
room, which was her best room. Her sewing machine was there, and her
biggest oil lamp and her few small sticks of company furniture, her few
scraps of parlor ornamentation; a bad picture or two, gaudily framed;
china vases on a m