r spirit was filled with a great
thankfulness which she could not voice, but which lifted her, serene
and still, above every one there. Now she looked only at Peter
Junior. Then a tremor crept over her, and, turning, she clasped
Larry's arm with shaking hands.

"Let me that I lean a little upon you or I fall down. How this is
beautiful!"

Larry put his arm about her and held her to him, supporting her
gently. "It's all coming right, you see."

"Yes. But, how it is terrible for the old man! It is as if the
lightning had fallen on him."

Larry glanced at his brother-in-law and then looked away. After all
his desire to see him humbled, he felt a sense of shame in watching
the old man's abject humility and remorse. Thereafter he kept his eyes
fixed on his son, as he struggled with the throng packed closely
around him and shouting now his name. Suddenly, when he could no
longer progress, Richard felt himself lifted off his feet, and there,
borne on the shoulders of the men,--as he had so shortly before been
borne in triumph through the streets of Paris,--he was carried
forward, this time by men who had tramped in the same column of
infantry with him. Gladly now they held him aloft and shouted his
name, and the people roared it back to them as they made way, and he
was set down, as he directed, in the box beside the prisoner.

Had the Judge then tried to restore order it would have been futile.
He did not try. He stood smiling, with his hand on the old Elder's
shoulder. Then, while the people cheered and stamped and shouted the
names of the two young men, and while women wept and turned to each
other, clasping hands and laughing through tears, Milton Hibbard
stooped and spoke in the Elder's ear.

"I throw up the case, man, and rejoice with you and the whole town. Go
down there and take back your son."

"The Lord has visited me heavily for the wicked pride of my heart. I
have no right to joy in my son's return. He should cast me off." The
old man sat there, shriveled and weary--gazing straight before him,
and seeing only his own foolish prejudice, like a Giant Despair,
looming over him. But fortunately for him, no one saw him or noticed
him but the two at his side, for all eyes were fixed on the young men,
as they stood facing each other and gazed in each other's eyes.

It was a moment of breathless suspense throughout the court room, as
if the crowd by one impulse were waiting to hear the young man speak,
and the J