the Judge's ways, was a bit taken aback by
this question. It set him tugging at his goatee, and his voice was not
quite steady as he answered:

"God knows, Silas. We are human, and we can only try."

Then Mr. Whipple marched in. It lacked a quarter of an hour of dinner,
--a crucial period to tax the resources of any woman. Virginia led the
talk, but oh, the pathetic lameness of it. Her own mind was wandering
when it should not, and recollections she had tried to strangle had
sprung up once more. Only that morning in church she had lived over again
the scene by Mr. Brinsmade's gate, and it was then that a wayward but
resistless impulse to go to the Judge's office had seized her. The
thought of the old man lonely and bitter in his room decided her. On her
knees she prayed that she might save the bond between him and her father.
For the Colonel had been morose on Sundays, and had taken to reading the
Bible, a custom he had not had since she was a child.

In the dining-room Jackson, bowing and smiling, pulled out the Judge's
chair, and got his customary curt nod as a reward. Virginia carved.

"Oh, Uncle Silas," she cried, "I am so glad that we have a wild turkey.
And you shall have your side-bone." The girl carved deftly, feverishly,
talking the while, aided by that most kind and accomplished of hosts, her
father. In the corner the dreaded skeleton of the subject grinned
sardonically. Were they going to be able to keep it off? There was to be
no help from Judge Whipple, who sat in grim silence. A man who feels his
soul burning is not given to small talk. Virginia alone had ever
possessed the power to make him forget.

"Uncle Silas, I am sure there are some things about our trip that we
never told you. How we saw Napoleon and his beautiful Empress driving in
the Bois, and how Eugenie smiled and bowed at the people. I never saw
such enthusiasm in my life. And oh, I learned such a lot of French
history. All about Francis the First, and Pa took me to see his chateaus
along the Loire. Very few tourists go there. You really ought to have
gone with us."

Take care, Virginia!

"I had other work to do, Jinny," said the Judge.

Virginia rattled an.

"I told you that we stayed with a real lord in England, didn't I?" said
she. "He wasn't half as nice as the Prince. But he had a beautiful house
in Surrey, all windows, which was built in Elizabeth's time. They called
the architecture Tudor, didn't they, Pa?"

"Yes, dear," sai