girl had advised her to "get a bite." She was keeping her courage high
by thinking over and over to herself,

"After I see the Judge then I'll go to Dudley Hamilt."

It had not occurred to her that this busy place was a court room. It
had no stately panelled walls like those that had been painted in the
background of the portrait of Grandy's father. Nor did she understand
when she was at last ushered into the Justice's presence that he was
the man she had been waiting to see.

He did not wear a white curly wig and he did not wear a black satin
gown the way Grandy's father had. Nor were there any scrolls of vellum
with fat beribboned seals in this Judge's hands. Instead, alert
slender fingers riffled their way rapidly through a mass of papers
that a clerk put before him. Felicia watched the fingers until the
close cropped head was lifted and keen gray eyes glanced straight
through hers.

The abrupt phrase with which he had intended to dismiss her died. He
stared at her curiously. He noted the traveling bag at her feet, the
absurd old coat and bonnet, the dark circles under her beseeching
eyes--

"She looked," as he explained afterward, "like a daguerreotype--old
and youthful all at once, faded yet shining--most extraordinary little
person--"

"You are the Felicia Day mentioned here?" he asked gravely tapping the
papers.