a, honey, you certainly are like to do yourself a hurt reaching
out like that, and if you _should_ go over!"

"But I shan't, Aunt Sajane. Do you reckon I'd risk appearing before
Gertrude Loring in a draggled gown just when she has returned from the
very heart of the civilized world? Goodness knows, we'll all look
dowdy enough to her."

Aunt Sajane (Mistress Sarah Jane Nesbitt) glanced down at her own
immaculate lawn, a little faded but daintily laundered, and at her own
trim congress-gaitered feet.

"Oh, I didn't mean you," added the girl, laughing softly. "Aunt
Sajane, I truly do believe that if you had nothing but gunny sacks for
dresses you'd contrive to look as if you'd just come out of a
bandbox."

"I'd wear gunny sacks fast enough if it was to help the cause," agreed
Aunt Sajane, with a kindly smile. "So would you, honey."

"Honey" trailed her fingers in the waters, amber-tinted from the roots
of the cypress trees.

"If a letter from mama comes today we will just miss it."

"Only by a day. Brother Gideon will send it."

"But suppose he's away somewhere on business, or up there at Columbia
on state councils or conventions, or whatever they are, as he is just
now?"

"Then Pluto will fetch it right over," and she glanced at one of the
black men, who showed his teeth for an instant and bent his head in
assent.

"Don't see why Judge Clarkson was _ever_ named Gideon," protested the
girl. "It's a hard, harsh sort of name, and he's as--as--"

"Soft?" queried the judge's sister, with an accompaniment of easy
laughter. The youngest of the two oarsmen grinned. Pluto maintained a
well-bred indifference.

"No!" and the girl flung a handful of willow leaves over the lavender
lawn. "He is--well--just about right, the judge is; so gentle, so
considerate, so altogether magnificent in his language. I've adored
him as far back as when he fought the duel with the Northern man who
reflected some way on our customs; that was starting a war for his
state all alone, before anyone else thought of it, I reckon. I must
have been very little then, for I just recollect how he used to let me
look in his pockets for candy, and I was awfully afraid of the pistols
I thought he must carry there to shoot people with," and she smiled at
the childish fancy. "I tell you, Aunt Sajane, if my papa had lived
there's just one man I'd like him to favor, and that's our judge. But
he didn't, did he?"

"No, he didn't," said Aunt Sajane. "The