“No, I don’t,” snapped Mrs. Higgins, and she didn’t, but she thought she did. “Only if you mean Mr. Richard Gordon, I’ll tell you now there ain’t no one in this here God-forsaken country who can hold a tallow candle to him. Just put that in your pipe and smoke it, will you?” She piled up dishes viciously. She did not wait for her guests to depart before she began demolishing the table. It was a tremendous breach of etiquette, but she didn’t care. To have an ideal shattered ruthlessly is ever a heart-breaking thing. “But my dear Mrs. Higgins,” expostulated the Judge. “You needn’t,” said that lady, shortly. “I don’t care,” she went on, “if the president himself or an archangel from heaven came down here and plastered Dick Gordon with bad-smellin’ names from the crown of his little toe to the tip of his head, I’d tell ’em to their very faces that they didn’t know what they was a talkin’ about, and what’s more they’d better go back to where they belong and not come nosin’ round in other people’s business when they don’t understand one single mite about it. We don’t want ’m puttin’ their fingers in our pie when they don’t know a thing about us or our ways. That’s my say,” she closed, with appalling significance, flattering herself that no one could dream but that she was dealing in the most off-hand generalities. She was far too politic to antagonize, and withal too good a woman not to strike for a friend. She congratulated herself she had been true to all her gods—and she had been. Louise smiled in complete sympathy, challenging the Judge meanwhile with laughing eyes. But the Judge—he was still much of a boy in spite of his grave calling and mature years—just threw back his blonde head and shouted in rapturous glee. He laughed till the very ceiling rang in loud response; laughed till the tears shone in his big blue eyes. Mrs. Higgins looked on in undisguised amazement, hands on hips. “Dear me, suz!” she sputtered, “is the man gone clean daffy?” “Won’t you shake hands with me, Mrs. Higgins?” he asked, gravely. “I ask your pardon for my levity, and I assure you there isn’t a man in the whole world I esteem more or hold greater faith in than Dick Gordon—or love so much. I thank you for your championship of him. I would that he had more friends like you. Louise, are you ready?” Their walk to the hotel was a silent one. Later, as she was leaving him to go to her own room, Louise laid her head caressingly on her uncle’s sleeve. “Uncle Hammond,” she said, impulsively, “you are—incorrigible, but you are the best man in all the world.” “The very best?” he asked, smilingly. “The very best,” she repeated, firmly.