oy. Then James would acquiesce without a word.

Immediately after breakfast the Captain went down the street. He opened
his letters and attended to the first routine of business; then he went
across the way and up a flight of stairs to a lawyer's office.

If you had happened to read the county papers at about this time, you
would have seen among the legal notices two petitions, identical in
form,--the one by Joseph Pelham, the other by James Parsons,--each
applying for guardianship of Joseph Pelham, the younger of that name,
with an order upon each petition for all persons interested to come
in on the first Tuesday of the following month and show cause why the
petitioner's demand should not be granted.

The county court-house was a new brick building, of modest size, fifteen
miles from W------, and twenty miles from the village where James
Parsons lived.

There were fifteen or twenty people from different towns in attendance
when the court opened on the important first Tuesday. As one after
another transacted his affairs and went away, others would come in.
Three or four lawyers sat at tables talking with clients, or stood
about the judge's desk. There was a sprinkling of women in new mourning.
Printed papers, filled out with names and dates,--petitions and
bonds and executors' accounts,--were being handed in to the judge and
receiving his signature of approval.

The routine business was transacted first. It was almost noon when the
judge was at last free to attend to contested matters. There was a small
audience by that time,--only ten or a dozen people, some of whom were
waiting for train-time, while others, who had come upon their own
affairs, lingered now from curiosity.

The judge was a tall, spare, old-fashioned man; he had held the office
for above thirty years. He was a man of much native force, of sound
learning within the range of his judicial duties, and of strong
common-sense. He was often employed by Captain Pelham in his own
affairs, and more particularly in bank and insurance matters,--for the
probate judges are free to practise at the bar in matters not connected
with their judicial duties,--and Captain Pelham had always retained
him in important cases as counsel for the town. He had a large
practice throughout the county; he knew its people, their ideas, their
traditions, and their feelings. He understood their social organization
to the core.

"Now," said the judge, laying aside some papers upo