y deserved.

Susan did not herself press the point of being a celebrity in her own
appearance. She did not look the part. She did not even try. She was
sixty years old, wore black frocks which touched the pavements behind as
she walked and were raised some eight inches above it in front, owing
to that perfect frankness with which age is always willing to confess
its stomach. She had worn the same bonnet for five years, tied under her
protruding chin. Sometimes she changed the ribbons, but she never
changed the "shape."

She nodded to the three men seated near the open window in the bank.
Then she paused at the bottom of the steps which led to the second floor
and sighed.

"This staircase was built for men to climb," she grumbled as she began
the ascent. She stood on the step below and put her right foot on the
one above, but she did not alternate with the left. The gears in her
left knee were not strong enough to bear the necessary lift. Her feet
made a flat all-heel-and-toe sound as she went up, very emphatic. When
she reached the top her face was red, and she was "out of breath." But
she went on panting down the hall, looking at the lettering on the doors
of the various offices. Printed on a large ground-glass door she saw
"Mike Prim." She wrinkled her nose, adjusted her spectacles, poked out
her neck and stared at it.

"Humph! Mike Prim! Nothing else! What does he do? How does he make a
living? Every man in this town knows, and not a single woman!" she said
to herself.

She came to the door at the end of the hall upon which was printed,
"John Regis, Attorney-at-law."

She opened it without knocking and stood upon the threshold.

"Well, John Regis, you must think you are still a young man, keeping
your office at the top of this ladder staircase," she complained,
raising her handkerchief and dabbing her face.

"Come in, Susan, and take this chair by the window," said the Judge.
Rising from his desk and coming forward, he conducted her elegantly to
the chair.

"It's forty years since I was here," she said, looking about her, "and
you've not changed a thing. You are scarcely changed yourself, John."

"The man is changed, Susan. Forty years make more difference in a man
than they do in things," he answered gently.

"The same books, all so thick and awful looking. I remember that day I
thought you must be the wisest man in the world--to know all that was in
them."

"I didn't know, and I don't know yet," he