ophy felt at this time (and she had not a few)
was the fact that Bobby was to be left at Sweet-Waters during these
months of absence. They had never been a day, much less a night, apart
since he was born. Now she would leave him, in Charlotte's care, whom he
dearly loved, it is true, but--she would leave him.

Charlotte could not throw off the depression caused by this fulfilment
of her anxious prognostications.

"She may be happy _now_," she told her Joe; "but oh! what will she
feel--say in two years--_when she wakes up_?"

The Judge admitted the possibility of Sophy's present joy suffering a
diminution. He even went so far as to say that very possibly there might
be some disillusionment for her in the soberer future--but he roundly
approved her present joy.

"Doggone it, Charlotte!" he exclaimed, using the one form of oath that
he permitted himself. "The poor girl's seen enough misery. Why shouldn't
she be happy in her own way! This Loring is a nice fellow. He's rich ...
that's not to be sneezed at, let me tell you, old lady. He's
good-tempered: he's a gentleman--he's heels over head in love with
her...."

"And he's four ... nearly five years younger," put in Charlotte sternly.

The Judge rubbed his dusky wreath of hair the wrong way about his fine,
bald poll--a sure sign that he was "up against" a knotty question.

"That's a pity, I admit," he said rather lamely. Like Charlotte, he had
very old-fashioned notions about the desirability--almost the
necessity--of a husband's being the elder of his wife. It shocked his
fixed ideals, when brought face to face with it in this plump manner,
that Sophy should be her lover's senior by four years.

Charlotte's fly-away eyebrows came down and joined.

"It's a tragedy and it's a _shame_!" said she.

"No, no ... no, no," almost coaxed the Judge. "Not a shame, Chartie--a
pity if you like.... Yes ... it certainly is a pity--but...."

Charlotte's very apprehension for her sister made her bitter.

"It's just another of Sophy's tragic mistakes," said she. "I did think
that awful experience had cured her of making mistakes."

Her husband looked at her rather whimsically from under the fluff of
smoky black that he had forgotten to smooth down again.

"Are _you_ so doggone sure of making no more mistakes till you die, old
lady?"

Charlotte jerked a snarled place from her black curls by main force. She
did not even notice the acute pain, so great was her agitation over wh