ommon sense
subordinated to chicanery and precedent. Damn precedent, anyway. It
means referring to a past that didn't know, and didn't want to know,
what justice was."

In the atmosphere of lectures like these, Bradley had unconsciously
absorbed a great deal of radical thought about law-codes, and now went
about the study of the history of enactments and change of statutes
without any servile awe of the past. The Judge's irreverence had its
uses, for it put a law on its merits before the young student.

He found the law-school a very congenial place to study. He passed the
examinations quite decently.

His life there was quiet and studious, for he felt that he had less
time than the younger men. His age seemed excessive to him, by
contrast. He was very generally respected as a quiet, decent fellow,
who might be a fine consulting lawyer, but not a good man in the
courts. They changed this opinion very suddenly upon hearing him
present his first plea.

His life consisted for the most part of passing to and fro from his
boarding-place to his recitation-room, or to long hours of digging in
the library. He saw from time to time notices of Miss Wilbur's lectures
in the interests of the grange and upon literary topics. He determined
to hear her if she came into any neighboring city. There was no one to
spy upon him, if he made an expedition of that sort.

One beautiful winter day he read in the weekly paper of the town that
she was about to appear at the Congregational church in a lecture
entitled, "The Real Woman-question." He had an impulse to sing, which
he wisely repressed, for he couldn't sing--that is, nothing which the
hearer would recognize as singing. The Fates seemed working in his
favor.

He had preserved a marked sweetness and purity of thought through all
his hard life that made him a good type of man. His clear, steady eyes
never gave offence to any woman, for nothing but sympathy and
admiration ever looked out of them. The very thought that she was
coming so near brought a curious numbness into his muscles and a tremor
into his hands. He looked forward now to the evening of the lecture
with the keenest interest he had ever felt.

The dazzling winter day seemed more radiant than ever before, when he
heard some ladies in the post-office say Ida was in town. The blue
shadows lay on the new-fallen snow vivid as steel. The warm sun
showered down through the clear air a peculiar warmth that made the
eaves be