Ruth sprang to William’s defence.  She said that it was not his fault.  They were separated by the crowd.  He had done his best, and all that any one could have done.

“I made William take me.  He didn’t want to do it.  And I am not sorry that I went, although I was so much frightened at the time.  Without seeing it, no one can ever know what this strange and awful thing is like.  No description can possibly describe it,” she said, with darkening eyes and rising color.

“A most shocking and improper scene,” said William Pressley, as one who weighs his words.  “A most shocking and improper scene.”

Ruth looked at him wonderingly.

“Shocking—­improper!” she faltered, perplexedly.  “What a strange way to think of it.  To me it was a great, grave, terrible spectacle.  The awe of it overwhelmed me, alarmed as I was.  Why, it was like seeing the Soul universal—­bared and quivering.”

William Pressley said nothing more.  He never discussed anything.  Once he had spoken, the subject seemed to him finally disposed of.

“Great Grief!” cried Miss Penelope in the blankest amazement and the greatest dismay.  “For the land’s sake!”

As the faithful high-priestess of the coffee-pot she was always the first to taste her own brew.  She now set her cup down hastily.  Her red, wrinkled little face was a study.  The widow Broadnax, whose cup was untouched, sat silent and impassive as usual, regarding her with the same dull, half-open, unwinking gaze.

“What under the sun!” gasped Miss Penelope, still more and more amazed and dismayed, and growing angry as she rallied from the shock.

“Come, come!—­if I can’t eat breakfast in peace, I’ll take to the woods.  What’s the matter?” exclaimed the judge.  “Didn’t you get the coffee made to suit you, after all that rumpus?  Isn’t it good?”

“Good!” shrieked Miss Penelope.  “It’s poisoned, I do believe!  Don’t drink it, any of you, if you value your lives!”

“Oh, nonsense!” said the judge.  “You are too hard to please, Sister Penelope.  And you spoil the rest of us, making the coffee yourself.  Never mind—­never mind!”

He took a sip and made a wry face, but he hardly ever knew what he was eating, and pushing the cup back, forgot all about it.  He was more interested in Ruth’s account of the meeting, and asked many questions about her ride home.

“This young doctor must be a fine fellow,” he said.  “I have been hearing a good deal about him from Father Orin.  They are already great friends, it seems.  They meet often among the poor and the sick, and work together.  I hope, my dear, that you thought to ask him to call.  You remembered, didn’t you, to tell him that the latch-string of Cedar House always hangs on the outside?  I want to thank him and then I should like to know such a man.  He is an addition to the community.”

“Oh, yes, I thought of that, of course,” said Ruth, simply.  “I told him I knew you and William would like to thank him.  He is coming to-day.  I hope, uncle Robert, that you will be here when he does come.”