Along the verdurous, gray lanes the houses seemed abandoned, shuttered, filled with shade.  From the court-house green came the chime of cow-bells rising and falling in slow waves of sound.  A spotted calf stood bleating in the crooked footpath, which traversed diagonally the waste of buttercups like a white seam in a cloth of gold.  Against the arching sky rose the bell-tower of the grim old church, where the sparrows twittered in the melancholy gables and the startled face of the stationary clock stared blankly above the ivied walls.  Farther away, at the end of a wavering lane, slanted the shadow of the insane asylum.

Across the green the houses were set in surrounding gardens like cards in bouquets of mixed blossoms.  They were of frame for the most part, with shingled roofs and small, square windows hidden beneath climbing roses.  On one of the long verandas a sleeping girl lay in a hammock, a gray cat at her feet.  No sound came from the house behind her, but a breeze blew through the dim hall, fluttering the folds of her dress.  Beyond the adjoining garden a lady in mourning entered a gate where honeysuckle grew, and above, on the low-dormered roof, a white pigeon sat preening its feathers.  Up the main street, where a few sunken bricks of a vanished pavement were still visible, an old negro woman, sitting on the stone before her cabin, lighted her replenished pipe with a taper, and leaned back, smoking, in the doorway, her scarlet handkerchief making a spot of colour on the dull background.

The sun was still high when the judge came out upon his porch, a smile of indecision on his face and his hat in his hand.  Pausing upon the topmost step, he cast an uncertain glance sideways at the walk leading past the church, and then looked straight ahead through the avenue of maples, which began at the smaller green facing the ancient site of the governor’s palace and skirted the length of the larger one, which took its name from the court-house.  At last he descended the steps with his leisurely tread, turning at the gate to throw a remonstrance to an old negro whose black face was framed in the library window.

“Now, Caesar, didn’t I—­”

“Lord, Marse George, dis yer washed-out blue bowl, wid de little white critters sprawlin’ over it, done come ter pieces—­”

“Now, Caesar, haven’t I told you twenty times to let Delilah wash my Wedgwood?”

“Fo’ de Lord, Marse George, I ain’t breck hit.  I uz des’ hol’n it in bofe my han’s same es I’se hol’n dis yer broom, w’en it come right ter part.  I declar ’twarn my fault, Marse George, ’twarn nobody’s fault ’cep’n hit’s own.”

The judge closed the gate and waved the face from the window.

“Go about your business, Caesar,” he said, “and keep your hands off my china—­”

Then his tone lost its asperity as he held out his hands to a pretty girl who was coming across the green.

“So you are back from school, Miss Juliet,” he said gallantly.  “I was telling your mother only yesterday that I didn’t approve of sending our fairest products away from Kingsborough.  It wasn’t done in my day.  Then the prettiest girls stayed at home and gave our young fellows a chance.”