And so Judge Bascom and his beautiful daughter were installed at the old Place. Mildred, under the circumstances, would rather have been elsewhere, but she was practically under orders. It was necessary to the well-being of her father, so the doctor said, that he should remain where he was; it was necessary that he should be humored in the belief that he was the owner of the old Place. It is only fair to say that Miss Sophie Underwood and her brother were more willing and anxious to enter into this scheme than Mildred appeared to be. She failed to comprehend the situation until after she had talked with her father, and then she was in despair. Judge Bascom was the representative of everything substantial and enduring in his daughter’s experience, and when she realized that his mind had been seized by a vagary she received a tremendous shock. But the rough edges of the situation, so to speak, were smoothed and turned by Miss Sophie, who assumed motherly charge of the young girl. Miss Sophie’s methods were so sympathetic and so womanly, and she gave to the situation such a matter-of-fact interpretation, that the grief and dismay of the young girl were not as overwhelming as they otherwise would have been. VIII. Naturally all the facts that have just been set down here were soon known to the inhabitants of Hillsborough. Naturally, too, something more than the facts was also known and talked about. There was the good old doctor ready to shake his head and look mysterious, and there were the negroes ready to give out an exaggerated version of the occurrences that followed Judge Bascom’s visit to his old home. “Well,” said Major Jimmy Bass to his wife, with something like a snort, “ef the old Judge is gone there an’ took holt of things, like they say, it’s bekaze he’s out’n his mind. I wonder what in the round world could ’a’ possessed him?” “I ’spec’ he’s done drapt back into his doltage,” said Farmer Joe-Bob Grissom, who had gone to the major’s for the purpose of discussing the matter. “An’ yit, they do say that he’s got a clean title to every bit of the prop’ty, ef you take into account all that talk about his wife’s brother, an’ sech like.” “Well,” remarked the major grimly, “Sarah there ain’t got no brother, an’ I reckon I’m sorter pretected from them kind of gwines-on.” “Why, tooby shore you are,” said his wife, who was the Sarah referred to; “but I ain’t so mighty certain that I wouldn’t be better off if I had a brother to follow you around where the wimmen folks can’t go. You’ve flung away many a bright dollar that he might have picked up.” “Who, Sarah?” inquired the major, wincing a little. “My brother,” returned Mrs. Bass. “Why, you haven’t got a brother, Sarah,” said Major Bass.