“Good morning, ladies,” he said, and looked shyly at Miss Lucretia and cleared his throat, and spoke with the elaborate decorum he used on occasions, “Miss Penniman, I wish to thank you again for your noble action of last evening.”

“Don’t ‘Miss Penniman’ me, Ezra Graves,” retorted Miss Lucretia; “the only noble action I know of was poor Jonathan Hill’s—­unless it was paying for the gas.”

This was the way in which Miss Lucretia treated her lover after thirty years!  Cynthia thought of what the lady had said to her a few hours since, by this very fire, and began to believe she must have dreamed it.  Fires look very differently at night—­and sometimes burn brighter then.  The judge parted his coat tails, and seated himself on the wooden edge of a cane-bottomed chair.

“Lucretia,” he said, “you haven’t changed.”

“You have, Ezra,” she replied, looking at the Adam’s apple.

“I’m an old man,” said Ezra Graves.

Cynthia could not help thinking that he was a very different man, in Miss Lucretia’s presence, than when at the head of the prudential committee.

“Ezra,” said Miss Lucretia, “for a man you do very well.”

The judge smiled.

“Thank you, Lucretia,” said he.  He seemed to appreciate the full extent of the compliment.

“Judge Graves,” said Cynthia, “I can tell you how good you are, at least, and thank you for your great kindness to me, which I shall never forget.”

She took his withered hands from his knees and pressed them.  He returned the pressure, and then searched his coat tails, found a handkerchief, and blew his nose violently.

“I merely did my duty, Miss Wetherell,” he said.  “I would not wilfully submit to a wrong.”

“You called me Cynthia yesterday.”

“So I did,” he answered, “so I did.”  Then he looked at Miss Lucretia.

“Ezra,” said that lady, smiling a little, “I don’t believe you have changed, after all.”

What she meant by that nobody knows.

“I had thought, Cynthia,” said the judge, “that it might be more comfortable for you to have me go to the school with you.  That is the reason for my early call.”

“Judge Graves, I do appreciate your kindness,” said Cynthia; “I hope you won’t think I’m rude if I say I’d rather go alone.”

“On the contrary, my dear,” replied the judge, “I think I can understand and esteem your feeling in the matter, and it shall be as you wish.”

“Then I think I had better be going,” said Cynthia.  The judge rose in alarm at the words, but she put her hand on his shoulder.  “Won’t you sit down and stay,” she begged, “you haven’t seen Miss Lucretia for how many years,—­thirty, isn’t it?”

Again he glanced at Miss Lucretia, uncertainly.  “Sit down, Ezra,” she commanded, “and for goodness’ sake don’t be afraid of the cane bottom.  You won’t go through it.  I should like to talk to you, and most of the gossips of our day are dead.  I shall stay in Brampton to-day, Cynthia, and eat supper with you here this evening.”