n aware of it!" responded the
judge. "I was about to do myself the honor to wait upon you at your
plantation."

"Then I have saved you a long walk," said Norton. He surveyed the judge
rather dubiously, but listened with great civility and kindness as he
explained the business that would have taken him to Thicket Point.

"The house is quite at your service, sir," he said, at length.

"The rent--" began the judge. He had great natural delicacy always in
mentioning matters of a financial nature.

But Mr. Norton, with a delicacy equal to his own, entreated him not to
mention the rent. The house had come to him as boot in a trade. It
had been occupied by a doctor and a lawyer; these gentlemen had each
decamped between two days, heavily in debt at the stores and taverns,
especially the taverns.

"I can't honestly say they owed me, since I never expected to get
anything out of them; however, they both left some furniture, all that
was necessary for the kind of housekeeping they did, for they were
single gentlemen and drew the bulk of their nourishment from Pegloe's
bar. I'll turn the establishment over to you with the greatest
pleasure in the world, and wish you better luck than your predecessors
had--you'll offend me if you refer to the rent again!"

And thus handsomely did Charley Norton acquit himself of the mission he
had undertaken at Betty Malroy's request.

That same morning Tom Ware and Captain Murrell were seated in the small
detached building at Belle Plain, known as the office, where the former
spent most of his time when not in the saddle. Whatever the planter's
vices, and he was reputed to possess a fair working knowledge of good
and evil, no one had ever charged him with hypocrisy. His emotions
lay close to the surface and wrote themselves on his unprepossessing
exterior with an impartial touch. He had felt no pleasure when Murrell
rode into the yard, and he had welcomed him according to the dictates of
his mood, which was one of surly reticence.

"So your sister doesn't like me, Tom--that's on your mind this morning,
is it?" Murrell was saying, as he watched his friend out of the corner
of his eyes.

"She was mad enough, the way you pushed in on us at Boggs' yesterday.
What happened back in North Carolina, Murrell, anyhow?"

"Never you mind what happened."

"Well, it's none of my business, I reckon; she'll have to look out for
herself, she's nothing to me but a pest sand a nuisance--I've been more