Judge Orcutt no longer published thin volumes of poetry. The bar said that he was now devoting himself more seriously to his profession. The truth was, perhaps, that in face of his accumulating knowledge of life and human beings, he no longer had the incentive to write lyrics. The poetry, however, was there ineradicably in his soul, affecting his judgments,--the lawyers still called him "cranky" or "erratic,"--and giving even to routine judicial acts a significance and dignity little suspected by the careless practitioners in his court.... And so this elderly gentleman, for he had crossed the sixty mark by now, recalled the timid, pale-faced, undersized girl, with her "common" aunt, who seven years before had appeared in his court and to whom he had been the instrument of giving riches. What had she done with the golden spoon he had thrust into her mouth and what would she do with it now? Ah, that was always the question with these inheritances which he was called upon to administer according to the complicated rules of law--and the law books afforded no answer to such questions!... "My dear," he said, with one of his beautiful smiles that seemed to irradiate the "case" before him with its personal kindliness and sympathy, "so you have been living in Europe the last few years and are now married?" Adelle said "yes" to both questions, while the trust officer who had accompanied her to court--not our Mr. Ashly Crane--fussed inwardly because he saw that Judge Orcutt was in one of his "wandering" and leisurely moods, and might detain them to discourse upon Europe or anything that happened into his mind before signing the necessary order. But after this introduction, the judge was silent, while his smile still lingered in the gaze he directed to the young woman before him.