A change came over the Radical Judge's face. It did not smile any
longer; and yet, somehow--_somehow_--it did not seem exactly angry. He
came a step nearer the paling fence.

"Little girl," he began softly, pleadingly, almost prayerfully. But
the thrower of stones waited to hear no more. As he came nearer,
almost near enough to touch, holding her with dumb eyes so different
from those she had expected, she fired another shot--it seemed just to
fly out of her hand--and ran.

As she scrambled up the high house steps, which went rented-fashion in
Fairville, from the ground to the second story, she remembered the
black splotch it had made on his white shirt; and then she remembered
another thing--the chain one underneath, to keep away rocks and
bullets and everything. Ah, if he hadn't worn that she might have
killed him; and then all the trouble in dear South Carolina would be
over forever and ever, amen.

As she sat in her high-chair at supper, eating hot raised corn-bread
and sugar-sweet sorghum, it seemed a dreadful thing that she hadn't
really done it; and directly, when a blue-eyed, full-breasted goddess,
known in the hired house as Ma and Miss Kate, looked meaningly across
the table, she sighed profoundly.

The fair lady, whose beauty was clouded by a deep sadness, turned soon
to the third sitter at the table, a tall, lank gentleman of perhaps
thirty-five, who, with dark, brooding eyes and a serious limp, had
just entered. He was the redoubtable Uncle John, of loud and fearless
opinion; and, if the bar-room bowie had missed him, a stray Radical