neither the wish nor the will to gainsay. I grieved that she
should deprive my uncle of his comfort; but being a lad, devoted, I
would not add one drop to my uncle's glass, while Judith sat under the
lamp, red-cheeked in the heat of the fire, her great eyes wishful to
approve, her mind most captivatingly engaged, as I knew, with the
will of God, which was her own, dear heart! though she did not know
it.

"Dannie," says she, in private, "God wouldn't 'low un more'n a quarter
of a inch at a time."

"'Twas in the pantry while I got the bottle."

"An' how," quoth I, "is you knowin' that?"

"Why, child," she answered, "God tol' me so."

I writhed. 'Twas a fancy so strange the maid had: but was yet so
true and reverent and usefully efficient--so high in leading to her
who led us with her into pure paths--that I must smile and adore
her for it. 'Twas to no purpose, as I knew, to thresh over the
improbability of the communication: Judith's eyes were round and
clear and unwavering--full of most exalted truth, concern, and
confidence. There was no pretence anywhere to be descried in their
depths: nor evil nor subterfuge of any sort. And it seems to me, now,
grown as I am to sager years, that had the Guide whose hand she held
upon the rough road of her life communed with His sweet companion,
'twould have been no word of reproach or direction he would whisper
for her, who needed none, possessing all the wisdom of virtue,
dear heart! but a warning in my uncle's behalf, as she would have it,
against the bottle he served. The maid's whimsical fancy is not
incomprehensible to me, neither tainted with irreverence nor untruth:
'twas a thing flowering in the eyrie garden of her days at Whisper
Cove--a thing, as I cannot doubt, of highest inspiration.

"But," I protested, glibly, looking away, most wishful, indeed, to
save my uncle pain, "I isn't able t' measure a quarter of a inch."

"_I_ could," says she.

"Not with the naked eye, maid!"

"Well," says she, "you might try, jus' t' please God."

To be sure I might: I might pour at a guess. But, unhappily (and it
may be that there is some philosophy in this for a self-indulgent
world), I was not in awe of Judith's fantastic conception of divinity,
whatever I thought of my own, by whom, however, I was not conjured.
Moreover, I loved my uncle, who had continued to make me happy all my
life, and would venture far in the service of his comfort. The
twinkling, benevolent aspect of