passed since, as Marcellus Hall's lawyer, he read the
astonishing letter to the partners of Hamilton and Company. He was over
seventy now, and behind his back Ostable folks referred to him as "old
Judge Baxter"; but although his spectacles were stronger than at that
time, his mental faculties were not perceptibly weaker, and he walked
with as firm, if not so rapid, a stride. So when, at eleven in the
forenoon of the day following Mary's dinner at the Howes' home, the
Judge heard someone enter the outer room of his offices near the Ostable
courthouse, he rose from his chair in the inner room and, without
waiting for his clerk to announce the visitor, opened the door himself.

The caller whose question the clerk was about to answer, or would
probably have answered as soon as he finished staring in awestruck
admiration, was a young lady. The Judge looked at her over his
spectacles and then through them and decided that she was a stranger. He
stepped forward.

"I am Judge Baxter," he said. "Did you wish to see me?"

She turned toward him. "Yes," she said simply. "I should like to talk
with you for a few moments if you are not too busy."

The Judge hesitated momentarily. Only the week before a persistent and
fluent young female had talked him into the purchase of a set of
"Lives of the Great Jurists," the same to be paid for in thirty-five
installments of two dollars each. Mrs. Baxter had pronounced the "Great
Jurists" great humbugs, and her husband, although he pretended to find
the "Lives" very interesting, was secretly inclined to agree with her.
So he hesitated. The young woman, evidently noticing his hesitation,
added:

"If you are engaged just now I shall wait. I came to see you on a matter
of business, legal business."

Judge Baxter tried to look as if no thought of his visitor's having
another purpose had entered his mind.

"Oh, yes, certainly! Of course!" he said hastily, and added: "Will you
walk in?"

She walked in--to the private office, that is--and the Judge, following
her, closed the door. His clerk stared wistfully at his own side of that
door for a full minute, then sighed heavily and resumed his work, which
was copying a list of household effects belonging to a late lamented who
had willed them, separately and individually, to goodness knew how many
cousins, first, second, and third.

In the private office the Judge asked his visitor to be seated. She took
the chair he brought forward. Then she s