“Mary—­who’s been saying all this to you?” he demanded.

“My husband.”

“Truelove Branch?”

She nodded.

“I’d like to meet him, by Jove, I’d like to meet him.  He has been teaching his wife to poke fun at her old friend——­”

She faced him fearlessly.  “I’m not poking fun.  I—­I’d hate to have the Bannisters lose one little bit of their beautiful traditions.  I—­I——­ Some day I’m going to teach little Fiddle those traditions, and tell her what it means when—­when people have race back of them.  You see, I haven’t it, Judge, but I know what it’s worth.”

He was touched by her earnestness.  “My dear Mary,” he said, “I wish my own grandson looked at it that way.  His letters of late have been very disturbing.”

A little flush crept into her cheeks.  “Disturbing?”

“He writes that we Americans have got to fit our practice to our theories.  He says that we shout democracy and practice autocracy.  That we don’t believe that all men are free and equal, and that, well, in your words, Mary—­we let other people carry our baskets.”

Mary was smiling to herself.  “You are glad he is coming home?”

“Truxton?  Yes.  On Saturday.”

“Becky told me.  She rode over to get Mother to help Mandy.”

“I am going to have a lot of people to dine the day he arrives,” said the Judge, “and next week there’ll be the Merriweathers’ ball.  He will have a chance to see his old friends.”

“Yes,” said Mary, “he will.”

They talked a great deal about Truxton after that.

“I wish he bore the Bannister name,” said the Judge.  “Becky is the only Bannister.”

After the death of her husband Mrs. Beaufort had come to live with the Judge.  Truxton’s boyhood had been spent on the old estate.  The Judge’s income was small, and Truxton had known few luxuries.  Like the rest of the boys of the Bannister family he was studying law at the University.  He and Randy had been classmates, but had gone into different branches of the service.

“When he comes back,” the Judge told Mary, “he must show the stuff he is made of.  I can’t have him selling cars around the county like Randy Paine.”

“Well, Randy has sold a lot of them,” said Mary.  “Father has given him an order——­”

“You don’t mean to gay that Bob Flippin is going to buy a car——­”

“He is.”

“He didn’t dare tell me,” the Judge said; “what’s he going to do with his horses?”

“Keep them,” said Mary serenely; “the car is for Mother—­she’s going to drive it herself.”

The Judge, with a vision of Mollie Flippin’s middle-aged plumpness upon him, exclaimed:  “You don’t mean that your mother is going to—­drive a car?”

“Yes,” said Mary, “she is.”

“I would as soon think of Claudia——­”

“No,” said Mary, “Mrs. Beaufort will never drive her own car.  She has the coachman habit, and if she ever gets a car, there’ll be a man at the wheel.”