Judge Dunlevy was the beau ideal of Jabel Blake, as the one eminent local statesman of the region round Ross Valley—­the County Judge when Jabel was a child, the Supreme Justice of the State, and now a District Justice of the United States in a distant field.  His reputation for purity, dignity, original social consideration, moral intrepidity, and direct Scotch sagacity had made his name a tower of strength in his native State.  To Jabel’s clannish and religious nature Judge Dunlevy represented the loftiest possibilities of human character; and that one of the two poor orphans—­the sons of a wood-cutter and log-roller on the Alleghenies, and the victim of intemperance at last—­whom Jabel had watched and partly reared, should now be betrothed to Catharine Dunlevy, the judge’s only daughter, affected every remaining sentiment in Jabel’s heart.

Absorbed in the contemplation of this honorable alliance, Jabel took out his account-book and absently cast up the additions, and so the long delay at Baltimore caused no remarks and the landscapes slipped by until, like the sharp oval of a colossal egg, the dome of the Capitol arose above the vacant lots of the suburbs of Washington.

A tall, handsome, manly gentleman in citizen black, standing expectantly on the platform of the station, came up and greeted MacNair with the word,

“Arthur!”

“Elk!”

And the brothers, legislator and soldier, stood contrasted as they clasped hands with the fondness of orphans of the same blood.  They had no superficial resemblances, Arthur being small, clerical, freckled, and red-haired, with a staid face and dress and a stunted, ill-fed look, like the growth of an ungracious soil; Elk, straight and tall, with the breeding and clothing of a metropolitan man, with black eyes and black hair and a small “imperial” goatee upon his nether lip; with an adventurous nature and experience giving intonation to his regular face, and the lights and contrasts of youth, command, valor, sentiment, and professional associations adding such distinction that every lady passenger going by looked at him, even in the din of a depot, with admiration.

To Jabel Blake, who came up lugging an ancient and large carpet-bag, and who repelled every urchin who wanted the job of carrying it, Elk MacNair spoke cordially but without enthusiasm.

“Jabel,” he said, “if I hear you growl about money as long as you are here, I’ll take you up to the Capitol and lose you among the coal-holes.”

“It took many a grunt to make the money,” said Jabel Blake, “and it’s natural to growl at the loss of it.”

By this time they had come to the street, and there in a livery barouche were the superb broad shoulders, fringed from above with fleece-white hair, of Judge Dunlevy.  Health, wisdom, and hale, honorable age were expressed attributes of his body and face, and by his side, the flower of noble womanhood, sat Catharine, his child, worthy of her parentage.  Both of them welcomed Arthur MacNair with that respectful warmth which acknowledged the nearness of his relationship to the approaching nuptials, and the Judge said: