stirred among her cushions once or twice, as if almost on the point of
trying to get out of her chair. She was fonder of finery than her
half-sister was, and she would have liked very much to see these
beautiful things nearer. But she was still fonder of her own ease than
of finery, and it was really a great deal of trouble to get out of her
deep, broad low chair. And then she never moved or took her eyes off her
half-sister while that energetic lady was engaged in making the coffee.

Knowing the ladies' ways, Ruth did not expect them to come. She was
quite satisfied to have the men share her pleasure in the presents.
They were looking at her and not at the gifts lying heaped on the
candle-stand, but she did not notice that. She gave the judge a
priceless piece of lace to hold. He took it with the awkward, helpless
embarrassment of a manly man handling a woman's delicate
belongings,--the awkwardness that goes straight to a woman's heart,
because she sees and feels its true reverence--a reverence just as plain
and just as sweet to the simplest country girl as to the wisest woman of
the world. The perception of it is a matter of intuition, not one of
experience. The least experienced woman instantly distrusts the man who
can touch her garments with ease or composure. Ruth's gay young voice
broke into a sweet chime of delighted laughter when the judge seized the
airy bit of lace as if it had been the heaviest and hottest of crowbars.
She laughed again when she looked at his face. He had an odd trick of
lifting one of his eyebrows very high and at an acute angle when
perplexed or ill at ease. This eccentric left eyebrow--now quite
wedge-shaped--had gone up almost to the edge of his tousled gray hair.
Ruth patted his great clumsy hands with her little deft ones.

"Well, I'll have to take to the woods, if there's no other way of
escape," said the judge, making his greatest threat.