l;
Bob-whites, single and in coveys; sandpipers, tip-ups and peeps, those
little ghosts of the seashore, shadows on the sand; there were soar and
other rails, robins and blackbirds, larks and sparrows, wild turkeys and
wild geese, all the toll which the hunter takes from field and stream
and forest.

It was in a sense a tragic room, but it had never seemed that to Becky.
She came of a race of men who had hunted from instinct but with a sense
of honor. The Judge and those of his kind hated wanton killing. Their
guns would never have swept away the feathered tribes of tree and sky.
It was the trappers and the pot-hunters who had done that. There had
motored once to the Judge's mansion a man and his wife who had raged at
the brutes who hunted for sport. They had worn fur coats and there had
been a bird's breast on the woman's hat.

The Judge, holding on to his temper, had exploded finally. "If you were
consistent," he had flung at them, "you would not be decked in the
bodies of birds and beasts."

Becky loved the birds in the glass cases, the peeps and the tip-ups, the
old owl who did not belong among the game birds, but who, with the great
eagle with the outstretched wings, had been admitted because they had
been shot within the environs of the estate. She loved the little nests
of tinted eggs, the ducks on the crystal pools.

But most of all she loved the Trumpeter. Years ago the Judge had told
her of the wild swans who flew so high that no eye could see them. Yet
the sound of their trumpets might be heard. It was like the fairy tale
of "The Seven Brothers," who were princes, and who were turned into
swans and wore gold crowns on their heads. She was prepared to believe
anything of the Trumpeter. She had often tiptoed down in the night,
expecting to see his case empty, and to hear his trumpet sounding high
up near the moon.

There was a moon to-night. Dinner was always late at Huntersfield. In
the old days three o'clock had been the fashionable hour for dining in
the county, with a hot supper at eight. Aunt Claudia, keeping up with
the times, had decided that instead of dining and supping, they must
lunch and dine. The Judge had agreed, stipulating that there should be
no change in the evening hour. "Serve it in courses, if you like, and
call it dinner. But don't have it before candle-light."

So the moon was up when Becky came down in her blue dress. She had not
expected to wear the blue. In spite of the fact tha