The judge did not remember her, nor could he recall the name as one which he had ever heard, but he did not think of doubting Josey’s word, and never suspected that, though her mother had been present at his bridal, it was as a former servant in the Bigelow family; he only knew that if she had been the most intimate friend of his wife, he did not like her daughter, and he greeted with rapture the young man who at last appeared and took her off his hands. Her attempt at familiarity with him had failed, and she felt intensely chagrined, and mortified, and disappointed, for she began to understand how difficult it would be for Everard to confess his marriage, and to fear the consequences if he did. A tolerably skillful reader of human nature, she saw what kind of man Judge Forrest was, and felt that Everard had not misrepresented him. She saw, too, that he had conceived a dislike to herself, and for the first time began to dread the result should he know that she was his daughter-in-law. Disinheritance of Everard might follow, and then farewell to her dream of wealth, and luxury, and position. It is true the latter would be hers to a certain extent, for the wife of Everard Forrest would always take precedence of Josephine Fleming, but Josey liked what money would bring her better than position, and perhaps it would be well to keep quiet a while longer, provided her rapidly increasing wants were supplied. In this conclusion she was greatly strengthened when, the morning following the reception, Everard came for a few moments to see her and escort her to the train, for she was to leave that morning for home. Between Everard and his father there had been a little conversation concerning Miss Josey, and not very complimentary to her either. “Who was that bold, brazen-faced girl you introduced to me?” the judge had asked, and Everard replied: “Do you mean that blonde in white? That is Miss Fleming from Holburton. She is called very beautiful.” “Umph! looks well enough, for that matter, but I do not like her. She is quite too forward, and familiar, and affected. There’s nothing real about her, but her brass and vulgarity. And you boarded there, it seems, and knew her well?” the judge said, testily, and Everard stammered out that he did board with Mrs. Fleming, and had found Josephine a very agreeable young lady. He must say so much in defense of the girl who was his wife, but it seemed to vex his father, who began to lose his temper, and said he should think very little of a young man who could find anything agreeable in _that_ girl! “Why, she’s no modesty or womanly delicacy at all, or she would not try to attract as she does with her eyes, and her hands, and her fan, and her naked arms, and the Lord only knows what. You are no son of mine if you can find pleasure in the society of such women as she represents. Why, she is as unlike Beatrice and Rossie as darkness is unlike daylight.”