Judge Forrest was, to his heart’s core, a Southerner, and had sympathized with his people during the rebellion, because they were his people; but had he been born North he would have been just as strong a Federal as he was a Confederate, so, instead of thinking more highly of Miss Josey for her rebel sentiments, he thought the less of her, and answered rebukingly, “Young woman, I do not quite believe you know all the word traitor implies; if you did, you wouldn’t voluntarily apply it to yourself.” “No, perhaps not. I’m a foolish, silly girl, I know,” Josey answered him humbly, while great tears swam in her blue eyes, but produced no effect upon the judge. Indeed, he scarcely saw them, he was so intent upon ridding himself of this piece of affectation and vulgarity, as he mentally pronounced her, and it was all in vain that she practiced upon him the little coquetries which she was wont to play off on other men with more or less success. He did not care for her innocence, nor her pretty pretense of ignorance of the world, nor timidity nor shyness, nor love of books and poetry, nor admiration of himself, for she tried all these, one after another, and felt herself growing angry with this man who stood so unmoved before her and seemed only anxious to get away. She had made no impression on him whatever, at least no good impression, and she knew it, and resolved upon one final effort. He might be reached through his son, and so she mentioned Everard, and complimented his oration, and told how high he stood in the estimation of the professors, and what an exemplary young man he was, and ended by saying, “You must be very proud of him, are you not?” Here was a direct question, but the judge did not answer it. There was beginning to dawn upon him a suspicion that this girl, whose flippant manner he so much disliked, was more interested in his son than in himself, and if so, possibly, his son was interested in her. At all events he meant to know the extent of their acquaintance, and instead of answering her question, he asked: “Have you known my son long?” Josey thought the truth would answer better than equivocation, and she told him that Everard had boarded with her mother a few weeks three years ago. “You remember,” she said, “he spent his long vacation East, and a part of it in Holburton, where we live. Perhaps you may have heard him speak of my mother. She knew your wife well, and was at your wedding, though you would not remember her, of course, among so many strangers.”