antel-shelf; two golden-oak rockers, wearing on their
slick and shiny frontlets the brand of an installment-house Cain who
murdered beauty and yet failed in his designings to achieve comfort. It
was as hot as a Dutch oven, that little box of a room inclosed within
its thin-planked walls. It was not a place where one would care to
linger longer than one had to. Judge Priest came swiftly to the heart of
the business which had sent him thither.

"Ma'am," he was saying, "this is a kind of a pussonal matter that's
brought me down here this hot night, and with your consent I'll git
right to the point of it. Ordinarily I'm a poor hand at diggin' into the
business of other people. But seein' that I knowed your late lamented
husband both ez a worthy citizen and ez an honest, hard-workin' man, and
seein' that in my official capacity it has been incumbent upon me to
issue certain orders in connection with your rights and claims arisin'
out of his ontimely death, I have felt emboldened to interest myself,
privately, in your case--and that's why I'm here now.

"To-day at the cotehouse, when the settlement wuz formally agreed to by
the legal representatives of both sides, an idea come to me. And that
idea is this: Now there's eight thousand dollars due the heirs, you
bein' one and your daughter, Mrs. Dallam Wybrant, bein' the other. Half
of eight thousand dollars wouldn't be so very much to help take keer of
a person, no matter how keerful they wuz; but eight thousand dollars,
put out at interest, would provide a livin' in a way fur one who lived
simply, and more especially in the case of one who owned their own home
and had it free from debt, ez I understand is the situation with
reguards to you.

"On the other hand, your daughter is well fixed. Her husband is a rich
man, ez measured by the standards of our people. It's probable that
she'll always be well and amply provided fur. Moreover, she's young, and
you, ma'am, will some day come to the time when you won't be able to go
on workin' with your hands ez you now do.

"So things bein' thus and so, it seems to me that ef the suggestion was
made to your daughter, Mrs. Dallam Wybrant, that she should waive her
claim to her share of them eight thousand dollars and sign over her
rights to you, thereby inshorin' you frum the fear of actual want in
your declinin' years; and her, ez I have jest been statin', not needin'
the money--well, it seems to me that she would jest naturally jump a