“Judge,” she said, “I wish you’d get up and go home. It sounds rude, Caleb, but he’s always insisting on dinner at one o’clock sharp, because his grandmother had it, and he’s never there until the roast is overdone or the gravy is spoiled! Besides, I’m alarmed; I’ve discovered something about Juniper.” Miss Sarah came in and shut the door and put her back against it, her air conveying some deep and awful mystery. “He’s got fifty dollars.” The judge brought down his heavy brows over his high nose in a judicial frown, but his eyes snapped. “What’s the nigger been up to?” he asked calmly; “been negotiating law business for him, Trench?” Caleb shook his head, smiling. “He’s been stealing,” said Miss Sarah with conviction. “Think likely,” said the judge, “but from whom? Not me, Sarah; if it had been from me it would have been fifty cents.” “I never thought it was from you,” she retorted scornfully, “but I’ve hunted the house over to see if he could have pawned anything and--” The judge brought his hand down on his knee. “The silver teapot, Sarah!” She shook her head. “Aunt Charity’s got it; she gave a supper last night and they had their usual fight and she locked him out. He sat on the step all night and came to our house for something to eat; then he showed the fifty-dollar bill. Of course he stole it.” The judge meditated, looking grim. It was Trench who made the suggestion. “Isn’t that rather large for campaign money?” he asked mildly. The judge swore, then he got up and reached for his hat. “I’ll make him take it back,” he said viciously. “Take it where?” demanded Miss Sarah vaguely. “To Ballyshank!” retorted the judge, jamming his hat down on his head. They all emerged into the outer room just as Miss Royall appeared in the shop-door. She was dressed in a pink muslin with a wide straw hat trimmed with pink roses, and looked like a woodland nymph. The judge swung off his hat. “We’ve been having a political tournament,” he said, “and now comes the Queen of Love and Beauty.” Diana liked the old man and smiled her most charming smile. Miss Sarah went up and pecked her cheek, a rite that elderly ladies still like to perform in public. Trench, longing to play the host but too proud to risk a rebuke, bowed silently. Something in Diana’s eye warned him that she was minded to make him repent the dance she had given him; the scoldings she had received were rankling in her mind. Unhappily, too, something in the judge’s manner said, “So ho! is this a flirtation?” Her cheeks burned. The judge blundered. “Let me offer a chair,” he said, with old-fashioned courtesy, “then we will ask you to help us solve a riddle of Sarah’s. She has found that Juniper is unusually rich, a kind of ebony John Jacob Astor, the proud possessor of fifty dollars.” Diana declined the chair. “Juniper?” she repeated. “Oh, yes, I know all about it!” “Did he steal it from you, dear?” Miss Sarah asked excitedly.