ried away.
The Colonel returned to his office, and sitting down, took a sheet of
letter-paper bearing the inscription "Starbottle and Stryker, Attorneys
and Counselors," and wrote the following lines:--

HOOKER versus HOTCHKISS.

DEAR MADAM,--Having had a visit from the defendant in above, we should
be pleased to have an interview with you at two P. M. to-morrow.

Your obedient servants,

STARBOTTLE AND STRYKER.

This he sealed and dispatched by his trusted servant Jim, and then
devoted a few moments to reflection. It was the custom of the Colonel to
act first, and justify the action by reason afterwards.

He knew that Hotchkiss would at once lay the matter before rival
counsel. He knew that they would advise him that Miss Hooker had "no
case"--that she would be nonsuited on her own evidence, and he ought not
to compromise, but be ready to stand trial. He believed, however, that
Hotchkiss feared such exposure, and although his own instincts had been
at first against this remedy, he was now instinctively in favor of it.
He remembered his own power with a jury; his vanity and his chivalry
alike approved of this heroic method; he was bound by no prosaic
facts--he had his own theory of the case, which no mere evidence could
gainsay. In fact, Mrs. Hooker's admission that he was to "tell the story
in his own way" actually appeared to him an inspiration and a prophecy.

Perhaps there was something else, due possibly to the lady's wonderful
eyes, of which he had thought much. Yet it was not her simplicity that
affected him solely; on the contrary, it was her apparent intelligent
reading of the character of her recreant lover--and of his own! Of all
the Colonel's previous "light" or "serious" loves, none had ever before
flattered him in that way. And it was this, combined with the respect
which he had held for their professional relations, that precluded
his having a more familiar knowledge of his client, through serious
questioning or playful gallantry. I am not sure it was not part of the
charm to have a rustic femme incomprise as a client.

Nothing could exceed the respect with which he greeted her as she
entered his office the next day. He even affected not to notice that she
had put on her best clothes, and he made no doubt appeared as when
she had first attracted the mature yet faithless attentions of Deacon
Hotchkiss at church. A white virginal muslin was belted around her slim
figure by a blue ribbon, and he