popularity.
His mere presence would suggest life and hope and healthfulness.

"My dear boy," exclaimed the doctor cordially, after Tryon had
introduced himself, "I'm delighted to meet you--or any one of the old
blood. Your mother and I were sweethearts, long ago, when we both wore
pinafores, and went to see our grandfather at Christmas; and I met her
more than once, and paid her more than one compliment, after she had
grown to be a fine young woman. You're like her! too, but not quite so
handsome--you've more of what I suppose to be the Tryon favor, though I
never met your father. So one of old Duncan McSwayne's notes went so
far as that? Well, well, I don't know where you won't find them. One
of them turned up here the other day from New York.

"The man you want to see," he added later in the conversation, "is old
Judge Straight. He's getting somewhat stiff in the joints, but he
knows more law, and more about the McSwayne estate, than any other two
lawyers in town. If anybody can collect your claim, Judge Straight
can. I'll send my boy Dave over to his office. Dave," he called to
his attendant, "run over to Judge Straight's office and see if he's
there.

"There was a freshet here a few weeks ago," he want on, when the
colored man had departed, "and they had to open the flood-gates and let
the water out of the mill pond, for if the dam had broken, as it did
twenty years ago, it would have washed the pillars from under the
judge's office and let it down in the creek, and"--

"Jedge Straight ain't in de office jes' now, suh," reported the
doctor's man Dave, from the head of the stairs.

"Did you ask when he'd be back?"

"No, suh, you didn't tell me ter, suh."

"Well, now, go back and inquire.

"The niggers," he explained to Tryon, "are getting mighty trifling
since they've been freed. Before the war, that boy would have been
around there and back before you could say Jack Robinson; now, the lazy
rascal takes his time just like a white man."

Dave returned more promptly than from his first trip. "Jedge
Straight's dere now, suh," he said. "He's done come in."

"I'll take you right around and introduce you," said the doctor,
running on pleasantly, like a babbling brook. "I don't know whether
the judge ever met your mother or not, but he knows a gentleman when he
sees one, and will be glad to meet you and look after your affair. See
to the patients, Dave, and say I'll be back shortly, and don't forget