e time to stop this afternoon as you go home?"

"I should call it a great pleasure if you would come and see us again
some time. You may be driving our way, sir," said John Hilton.

"Not very often in these days," answered the old judge. "I thank you
for the kind invitation. I should like to see the fine view again from
your hill westward. Can I serve you in any way while you are in town?
Good-by, my little friends!"

Then they parted, but not before Katy, the shy Katy, whose hand the
judge still held unconsciously while he spoke, had reached forward as
he said good-by, and lifted her face to kiss him. She could not have
told why, except that she felt drawn to something in the serious, worn
face. For the first time in her life the child had felt the charm of
manners; perhaps she owned a kinship between that which made him what
he was, and the spark of nobleness and purity in her own simple soul.
She turned again and again to look back at him as they drove away.

"Now you have seen one of the first gentlemen in the country," said
their father.

"It was worth comin' twice as far"--but he did not say any more, nor
turn as usual to look in the children's faces.

In the chief business street of Topham a great many country wagons
like the Hiltons' were fastened to the posts, and there seemed to our
holiday-makers to be a great deal of noise and excitement.

"Now I've got to do my errands, and we can let the horse rest and
feed," said John Hilton. "I'll slip his headstall right off, an' put
on his halter. I'm goin' to buy him a real good treat o' oats. First
we'll go an' buy me my straw hat; I feel as if this one looked a
little past to wear in Topham. We'll buy the things we want, an' then
we'll walk all along the street, so you can look in the windows an'
see the han'some things, same's your mother likes to. What was it
mother told you about your shawls?"

"To take 'em off an' carry 'em over our arms," piped Susan Ellen,
without comment, but in the interest of alighting and finding
themselves afoot upon the pavement the shawls were forgotten. The
children stood at the doorway of a shop while their father went
inside, and they tried to see what the Topham shapes of bonnets were
like, as their mother had advised them; but everything was exciting
and confusing, and they could arrive at no decision. When Mr. Hilton
came out with a hat in his hand to be seen in a better light, Katy
whispered that she wished he would buy