“Can I help you brush off, Judge?” asked Eskew, rising painfully.

Either Martin Pike was beyond words, or the courtesy proposed by the feeble old fellow (for Eskew was now very far along in years, and looked his age) emphasized too bitterly the indignity which had been put upon him:  whatever the case, he went his way in-doors, leaving the cynic’s offer unacknowledged.  Eskew sank back upon the bench, with the little rusty sounds, suggestions of creaks and sighs, which accompany the movement of antiques.  “I’ve always thought,” he said, “that the Judge had spells when he was hard of hearing.”

Oblongs of light abruptly dropped from the windows confronting them, one, falling across the bench, appropriately touching with lemon the acrid, withered face and trembling hands of the veteran.  “You are younger than you were nine years ago, Mr. Arp,” said Ariel, gayly.  “I caught a glimpse of you upon the street, to-day, and I thought so then.  Now I see that I was right.”

“Me—­younger!” he groaned.  “No, ma’am!  I’m mighty near through with this fool world—­and I’d be glad of it, if I didn’t expect that if there is another one afterwards, it would be jest as ornery!”

She laughed, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knee, and her chin in her hand, so that the shadow of her hat shielded her eyes from the light.  “I thought you looked surprised when you saw me to day.”

“I reckon I did!” he exclaimed.  “Who wouldn’t of been?”

“Why?”

“Why?” he repeated, confounded by her simplicity.  “Why?”

“Yes,” she laughed.  “That’s what I’m anxious to know.”

“Wasn’t the whole town the same way?” he demanded.  “Did you meet anybody that didn’t look surprised?”

“But why should they?”

“Good Lord Admighty!” he broke out.  “Ain’t you got any lookin’-glasses?”

“I think almost all I have are still in the customs warehouse.”

“Then use Mamie Pike’s,” responded the old man.  “The town never dreamed you were goin’ to turn out pretty at all, let alone the way you’ve turned out pretty!  The Tocsin had a good deal about your looks and so forth in it once, in a letter from Paris, but the folks that remembered you kind of set that down to the way papers talk about anybody with money, and nobody was prepared for it when they saw you.  You don’t need to drop no curtseys to me.”  He set his mouth grimly, in response to the bow she made him. “I think female beauty is like all other human furbelows, and as holler as heaven will be if only the good people are let in!  But yet I did stop to look at you when you went past me to-day, and I kept on lookin’, long as you were in sight.  I reckon I always will, when I git the chance, too—­only shows what human nature is!  But that wasn’t all that folks were starin’ at to-day.  It was your walkin’ with Joe Louden that really finished ’em, and I can say it upset me more than anything I’ve seen for a good many years.”