nodded
good-naturedly, still grasping the linen robe with his plump, red hand;
and the carriage jolted along the green and disappeared behind the
glazed brick walls of the church.

The judge regarded his walking-stick meditatively for a moment, and
continued his way. The smile with which he had followed the vanishing
figure of Juliet Burwell returned to his face, and his features softened
from their usual chilly serenity.

He had gone but a short distance and was passing the iron gate of the
churchyard, when the droning of a voice came to him, and looking beyond
the bars, he saw little Nicholas Burr lying at full length upon a marble
slab, his head in his hands and his feet waving in the air.

Entering the gate, the judge followed the walk of moss-grown stones
leading to the church steps, and paused within hearing of the voice,
which went on in an abstracted drawl.

"The most cel-e-bra-ted sys-tem of juris-pru-dence known to the world
begins, as it ends, with a code--" He was not reading, for the book was
closed. He seemed rather to be repeating over and over again words which
had been committed to memory.

"With a code. From the commencement to the close of its history, the
ex-posi-tors of Ro-man Law con-sistently em-ployed lan-guage which
implied that the body of their sys-tem rested on the twelve
De-cem-viral Tables--Dec-em-vi-ral--De-cem-vi-ral Tables."

"Bless my soul!" said the judge. The boy glanced up, blushed, and would
have risen, but the judge waved him back.

"No--no, don't get up. I heard you as I was going by. What are you
doing?"

"Learnin'."

"Learning! Dear me! What do you mean by learning?"

"I'm learnin' by heart, sir--and--and, if you don't mind, sir, what does
j-u-r-i-s-p-r-u-d-e-n-c-e mean?"

The judge started, returning the boy's eager gaze with one of kindly
perplexity.

"Bless my soul!" he said again. "You aren't trying to understand that,
are you?"

The boy grew scarlet and his lips trembled. "No, sir," he answered. "I'm
jest learnin' it now. I'll know what it means when I'm bigger--"

"And you expect to remember it?" asked the judge.

"I don't never forget," said the boy.

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed the judge for the third time.

For a moment he stood looking silently down upon the marble slab with
its defaced lettering. Of the wordy epitaph which had once redounded to
the honour of the bones beneath there remained only the words "who
departed," but he read these with a