ke in
the room and looked up and down the corridor for a room labeled with
Judge Orcutt's name, but found none. Then she asked a court attendant,
who told her that the judge had been retired for the last two years!
Adelle was turning away, with a sense of disappointment, when it came
into her mind like an inspiration--"He might still be living in the
city!" She inquired, and the court attendant, who did not know, was
polite enough to consult a directory and found that sure enough Judge
Orcutt was living on Mountcourt Street, which happened to be not far
away--in fact just over the hill from the court-house.

Thereupon, Adelle went on her way more swiftly, with a conscious purpose
guiding her feet, and found Mountcourt Street--a little, quiet, by-path
of a street such as exists in no other city of our famous land. It was
not a rifle-shot from the court-house and the busiest centers of the
city, yet it was as retired and as reposeful as if it had been forgotten
ever since the previous century, when its houses were built. And in the
middle of the first block, a sober, little brick house with an old white
painted door and window lights, was Judge Orcutt's number. Adelle was
shown to a small room in the front of the house and sat down, her heart
strangely beating as if she were waiting an appointment with a lover.
The house was so still! An old French clock ticked silently on the
mantelpiece beneath a glass case. All the chairs and tables, even the
rug, in the small room seemed like the house and the street, relics of
an orderly, peaceful past. Adelle knew something about furniture and
house decoration: it was one of the minor arts patronized by her class,
and she had learned enough to talk knowingly about "periods" and
"styles." Judge Orcutt's house was of no particular "period" or "style,"
but it was remarkably harmonious--the garment carefully chosen by a
person with traditions.... Presently the servant came back and invited
Adelle to go upstairs to the judge's library, as Judge Orcutt was not
feeling well to-day, she explained.

The study was like the room below, only larger, lighter, and well filled
with books. The judge was sitting near the grate, in which was burning a
soft-coal fire. He smiled on Adelle's entrance and apologized for not
rising.

"It's the east wind," he explained. "I've known it all my life, but it
gets us old fellows, you know, on days like these!"

Adelle took his thin hand and sat down in the