Margaret, accompanied by Mrs. Pennybacker, Bess and Mrs. Kirtley, sat beside the old Judge,--Mr. De Jarnette by his counsel. This by a chance brought the two who were fighting for the child side by side, while Philip, in childish ignorance of what it all meant, sat between them. Of course nothing had been said to him about the case, and the arguments of counsel threw no enlightenment upon the matter to him. But there was one book that Philip had learned to read if he did not know anything about the weighty volumes they were quoting from, and that was his mother's face. He saw from it now that something was wrong, and climbing up into her lap, he took her cheeks between his chubby hands and kissed her gravely on lips and eyes. Then, satisfied at the faint smile his caress evoked, he slid down to the floor, placed his chair close to hers, and laid his head against her shoulder. The little byplay was not lost on those in the vicinity, and the clerk, looking up just then, wondered what it could be that he had lost. The women spectators and some of the men were wiping their eyes. There had been a fearful strain upon Margaret in these last few days,--the journey, the suspense, the constantly-growing fear of how it would terminate were almost more than she could stand up against. She had a strange sudden sense of unreality. She looked around to see if it were really she. Then by one of those quick reversions that the mind sometimes makes, it seemed to her that she had been in precisely this place once before, not in that other trial, but in one just like this, that Mrs. Pennybacker sat beside her then as now, that Philip leaned against her thus, and that a man was saying this identical thing. She looked around at the court officers half dazed. As the trial proceeded she lost hope, Mr. De Jarnette's attorney was making out such a clear case. But when Judge Kirtley spoke it did not seem that there was room for doubt as to how it would go. She _must_ get the child. He closed with a powerful plea for a mother's supreme right. After the closing of the arguments the Judge spoke: "The question to be determined," he said, "is not one of sentiment, but of law. Briefly stated it is this: Whether the statute of Charles II, Chapter 24, Section 8, is in force in this District to the extent that the father of infant children may be deed or will transfer their exclusive custody and control to a guardian, regardless of the fact that the mother, his wife, may be competent, willing, and in all respects qualified to maintain, educate, and train them properly.