Bolton might easily have taken her tone for that of disgust. He faced round upon her once more. “It was kind of queer, his havin' the child with him, an' takin' most the care of her himself; and so, as I _say_, Mis' Bolton and me we took him in, as much to stop folks' mouths as anything, till they got kinder used to it. But we didn't take him into your part, as I _say_; and as _I_ say, I'm willin' to pay you whatever you say for the use of the old Judge's study. I presume that part of it _was_ a libbutty.” “It was all perfectly right, Mr. Bolton,” said Miss Kilburn. “His wife died anyway, more than a year ago,” said Bolton, as if the fact completed his atonement to Miss Kilburn, “_Git_ ep! I told him from the start that it had got to be a temporary thing, an' 't I only took him till he could git settled somehow. I guess he means to go to house-keepin', if he can git the right kind of a house-keeper; he wants an old one. If it was a young one, I guess he wouldn't have any great trouble, if he went about it the right way.” Bolton's sarcasm was merely a race sarcasm. He was a very mild man, and his thick-growing eyelashes softened and shadowed his grey eyes, and gave his lean face pathos. “You could have let him stay till he had found a suitable place,” said Miss Kilburn. “Oh, I wa'n't goin' to do _that_,” said Bolton. “But I'm 'bliged to you just the same.” They came up in sight of the old square house, standing back a good distance from the road, with a broad sweep of grass sloping down before it into a little valley, and rising again to the wall fencing the grounds from the street. The wall was overhung there by a company of magnificent elms, which turned and formed one side of the avenue leading to the house. Their tops met and mixed somewhat incongruously with those of the stiff dark maples which more densely shaded the other side of the lane. Bolton drove into their gloom, and then out into the wide sunny space at the side of the house where Miss Kilburn had alighted so often with her father. Bolton's dog, grown now so very old as to be weak-minded, barked crazily at his master, and then, recognising him, broke into an imbecile whimper, and went back and coiled his rheumatism up in the sun on a warm stone before the door. Mrs. Bolton had to step over him as she came out, formally supporting her right elbow with her left hand as she offered the other in greeting to Miss Kilburn, with a look of question at her husband. Miss Kilburn intercepted the look, and began to laugh.