e snow apples from the old
tree by the south corner of the orchard. Then I knew I was home."

Pennyroyal shed her first visible tear.

"I am glad you are home again, David," she sniffed. "You were always
such a clean boy."

"I missed you more'n any one did, David," acknowledged Miss Rhody. "Ef
I hed been a Catholic I should a felt as ef the confessional hed been
took from me. I ain't hed no one to talk secret like to excep' when
Joe comes onct a year. He ain't been fer a couple of years, either,
but he sent me anuther black dress the other day--silk, like the last
one. To think of little Joe Forbes a-growin' up and keepin' me in silk
dresses!"

"I'll buy your next one for you," declared David emphatically.

The next day after his return from college David started his legal
labors under the watchful eye of the Judge. He made a leap-frog
progress in acquiring an accurate knowledge of legal lore. He worked
and waited patiently for the Judge's recognition of his readiness to
try his first case, and at last the eventful time came.

"No; there isn't the slightest prospect of his winning it," the Judge
told his wife that night.

"The prosecution has strong evidence, and we have nothing--barely a
witness of any account."

"Then the poor man will be convicted and David will gain no glory,"
lamented M'ri. "It means so much to a young lawyer to win his first
case."

The Judge smiled.

"Neither of them needs any sympathy. Miggs ought to have been sent
over the road long ago. David's got to have experience before he gains
glory."

"How did you come to take such a case?" asked M'ri, for the Judge was
quite exclusive in his acceptance of clients.

"It was David's doings," said the Judge, with a frown that had a smile
lurking behind it.

"Why did he wish you to take the case?" persisted M'ri.

"As near as I can make out," replied the Judge, with a slight
softening of his grim features, "it was because Miggs' wife takes in
washing when Miggs is celebrating."

M'ri walked quickly to the window, murmuring some unintelligible sound
of endearment.

On the day of the summing-up at the trial the court room was crowded.
There were the habitual court hangers on, David's country friends _en
masse_, a large filling in at the back of the representatives of the
highways and byways, associates of the popular wrongdoer, and the
legal lore of the town, with the good-humored patronage usually
bestowed by the profession on the new