For an instant he regarded the child blankly; then his hospitality
asserted itself, and he waved him courteously into the room.

"Walk in, walk in, and take a seat. I am at your service."

He crossed to one of the tall windows, unfastening the heavy inside
shutters, from which the white paint was fast peeling away. As they fell
back a breeze filled the room, and the ivory faces of microphylla roses
stared across the deep window-seat. The place was airy as a summer-house
and odorous with the essence of roses distilled in the sunshine beyond.
On the high plastered walls, above the book-shelves, rows of bygone
Bassetts looked down on their departed possessions--stately and severe
in the artificial severity of periwigs and starched ruffles. They looked
down with immobile eyes and the placid monotony of past fashions,
smiling always the same smile, staring always at the same spot of floor
or furniture.

Below them the room was still hallowed by their touch. They asserted
themselves in the quaint curves of the rosewood chairs, in the blue
patterns upon the willow bowls, and in the choice lavender of the old
Wedgwood. Their handiwork was visible in the laborious embroideries of
the fire-screen near the empty grate, and the spinet in one unlighted
corner still guarded their gay and amiable airs.

"Sit down," said the judge. "I am at your service."

He seated himself before his desk of hand-carved mahogany, pushing aside
the papers that littered its baize-covered lid. In the half-gloom of the
high-ceiled room his face assumed the look of a portrait in oils, and he
seemed to have descended from his allotted square upon the plastered