wife, and the largest
estate in the country."

"You'll buy your wife with your money?" asked Judy.

"Easy,"--said Joe, grinning.

"I don't care--'twont be _me_," said Judy. "I pity the woman."

"Why?" said Joe. "She'll have everything she wants, too."

"Excepting the right person," said Judy.

"Well I don't care; it _won't_ be you," said Joe; "so you may say what
you like."

"I would if it was," said Judy.

But a chorus of laughter broke them off.

"Judy's next," said Norton. "I should like to hear what you will say,
Judy."

"I should like to be a queen," said Judy.

"That's it! Go to the top at once. Well, you've got to show why. What
would you do if you were a queen?"

"I'd put down all preaching and praying, and people's making fools of
themselves with giving away their money to poor folks, and nursing sick
folks, and all the rest of it."

"Why Judy!" exclaimed one or two. "You'd stop preaching?"

"Wouldn't you be sorry!" said Judy.

"No, but really. Wouldn't you let people be ministers?"

"Ministers like Dr. Blandford. He don't give away his money, I'll be
bound; and he likes his glass of wine and smokes his pipe like other
folks."

"He don't smoke a _pipe_, Judy."

"You know what I mean. If I had said he likes his _grog_, you wouldn't
have thought it was made of gin, would you?"

"So you'd be a queen, to stop religious toleration?" said Norton.

"I'd stop _any_," said Judy. "I don't care whether it's religious or
not."

"But what's given you such a spite at religious people?" asked Esther.

"Mean!" said Judy. "Artful. Conceited to death. Stupid. And insane."

There was again a chorus of "Oh Judy!"'s.

"Never mind," said Norton. "When she's queen, I'll sell out and buy an
estate in some other country. Who's next?"

"I knew you'd be sneaking along presently, at the tail of some black
coat or other," Judy responded. "It's in you. The disease'll break out."

"I don't know what's in me," said Norton. "Something that makes me hot.
I'm afraid it isn't religious. Roswell Holt, what's your idea of
capital and business? Do leave Judy to her own fancies. This game's
getting to be warm work. Roswell!--it's your turn."

"I believe," Roswell began sedately; he was an older boy than most of
them and very quiet; "I believe, what I should like would be, to know
all the languages there are in the world; and then to have a library so
large that all the books in the world should be in it."

"Capit