“I have some very fine cows,” Underwood went on. “Won’t you go in and look at them? I think they would interest Miss Bascom, and my sister would be glad to meet her. Won’t you go in, sir, and look at the old house?” The Judge turned his pale and wrinkled face towards his old home. “No,” he said, “not now. I thank you very much. I—somehow—no, sir, I cannot go now.” His hand shook as he raised it to his face, and his lips trembled as he spoke. “Let us go home, daughter,” he said after a while. “We have walked far enough.” He bowed to young Underwood, and Mildred bade him good-bye with a troubled smile. Prince went with them a little way down the street. He walked by the side of the lady, and her pretty hand rested lightly on the dog’s massive head. It was a beautiful picture, Underwood thought, as he stood watching them pass out of sight. “You are a lucky dog,” he said to Prince when the latter came back, “but you don’t appreciate your privileges. If you did you would have gone home with that lovely woman.” Prince wagged his tail, but it is doubtful if he fully understood the remark. V. One Sunday morning, as Major Jimmy Bass was shaving himself, he heard a knock at the back door. The major had his coat and waistcoat off and his suspenders were hanging around his hips. He was applying the lather for the last time, and the knocking was so sudden and unexpected that he rubbed the shaving-brush in one of his eyes. He began to make some remarks which, however appropriate they may have been to the occasion, could not be reported here with propriety. But in the midst of his indignant monologue he remembered that the knocking might have proceeded from some of Mrs. Bass’s lady friends, who frequently made a descent on the premises in that direction for the purpose of borrowing a cupful of sugar or coffee in a social way. These considerations acted as powerful brakes on the conversation that Major Bass was carrying on with some imaginary foe. Holding a towel to his smarting eye, he peeped from his room door and looked down the hall. The back door was open, but he could see no one. “Who was that knocking?” he cried. “I’ll go one eye on you anyways.” “’T ain’t nobody but me, Marse Maje,” came the response from the door. “Is that you, Jess?” exclaimed the major. “Well, pleg-take your hide to the pleg-taked nation! A little more an’ you’d ’a’ made me cut my th’oat from year to year; an’ as it is, I’ve jest about got enough soap in my eye fer to do a day’s washin’.” “Is you shavin’ yourse’f, Marse Maje?” asked Jesse, diplomatically.