find her out?"

The judge was a man of imagination; he had read many books and had
personally outlived some prejudices. He let his mind run on the
various phases of the situation.

"If he found her out, would he by any possibility marry her?"

"It is not likely," he answered himself. "If he made the discovery
here, the facts would probably leak out in the town. It is something
that a man might do in secret, but only a hero or a fool would do
openly."

The judge sighed as he contemplated another possibility. He had lived
for seventy years under the old regime. The young man was a
gentleman--so had been the girl's father. Conditions were changed, but
human nature was the same. Would the young man's love turn to disgust
and repulsion, or would it merely sink from the level of worship to
that of desire? Would the girl, denied marriage, accept anything less?
Her mother had,--but conditions were changed. Yes, conditions were
changed, so far as the girl was concerned; there was a possible future
for her under the new order of things; but white people had not changed
their opinion of the negroes, except for the worse. The general belief
was that they were just as inferior as before, and had, moreover, been
spoiled by a disgusting assumption of equality, driven into their thick
skulls by Yankee malignity bent upon humiliating a proud though
vanquished foe.

If the judge had had sons and daughters of his own, he might not have
done what he now proceeded to do. But the old man's attitude toward
society was chiefly that of an observer, and the narrow stream of
sentiment left in his heart chose to flow toward the weaker party in
this unequal conflict,--a young woman fighting for love and opportunity
against the ranked forces of society, against immemorial tradition,
against pride of family and of race.

"It may be the unwisest thing I ever did," he said to himself, turning
to his desk and taking up a quill pen, "and may result in more harm
than good; but I was always from childhood in sympathy with the under
dog. There is certainly as much reason in my helping the girl as the
boy, for being a woman, she is less able to help herself."

He dipped his pen into the ink and wrote the following lines:--

MADAM,--If you value your daughter's happiness, keep her at home for
the next day or two.

This note he dried by sprinkling it with sand from a box near at hand,
signed with his own name, and, with a fine court