ge's beagles lay with their
noses on their paws at their master's feet. Now and then they snapped
at flies but otherwise they were motionless.

Before the half hour was up Fiddle-dee-dee fell asleep, and the Judge
waking, saw on the other side of a stream propped against the gray old
oak, the young mother cool in her white dress, her child in her arms.

"Father had to go," she told him, and explained the need; "he'll send
Calvin for the basket."

"I can carry my own basket, Mary; I'm not a thousand years old."

"It isn't that. But you've never carried baskets, Judge."

The Judge chuckled. "You say that as if it were an accusation."

"It isn't. Only some of us seem born to carry baskets and others are
born to--let us carry them." Her smile redeemed her words from
impertinence.

"Are you a Bolshevik, Mary?"

"No. I believe in the divine rights of kings and--Judges. I'd hate to
see you carry a basket. It would rob you of something--just as I would
hate to see a king without his crown or a queen without her scepter."

"Oh, Mary, Mary, your father has never said things like that to me."

"He doesn't feel them. Father believes in The God of Things as They
are----"

"And don't you?"

"I believe in you," she rose and carrying her sleeping child, crossed
the stream on the stones as easily as if she carried no burden; "you
know I believe in you, don't you--and in all the Bannisters?"

It was said so lightly that he took it lightly. No one was so touchy
as the Judge about his dignity if it were disregarded. But here was
little Mary smiling up at him and telling him that he was a king with a
crown and she liked it.

"Well, well. Let's sit down, Mary."

"Fish, if you want to, and I'll watch."

He baited his hook and cast his line into the stream. It had a bobbing
red cork which fascinated Fiddle-dee-dee. She tried to wade out and
get it, and had to be held by her very short skirts lest she drown in
the attempt.

"So I'm a confounded autocrat," the Judge chuckled. "Nobody ever said
that to me before, but maybe some of them have been thinking it."

"Maybe they have," said Mary gravely, "but they haven't really cared.
Having the Bannisters at Huntersfield is like the English having a
Victoria or an Edward or a George at Buckingham Palace or at Windsor;
it adds flavor to their--democracy----"

"Mary--who's been saying all this to you?" he demanded.

"My husband."

"Truelove Branch?"

She nodde