“Poor thing, she’s in heaven, I’m sure,” he said; “and if I was ever harsh to her, it’s too late to help it now. I always liked her well enough, but I did not like her making love to Richard. He’ll get over it, too, even if he does talk about his heart being buried in her grave. Stuff and nonsense! Just as if a boy of twenty knows where his heart is. Needn’t tell me. He’ll come to his senses after he’s been home a spell, and that reminds me that I must send the carriage for him. Here, Ruth,” he continued, as he saw a servant passing in the hall, “tell Joe not to put out the horses, or if he has, to harness up again. Richard is coming home, and he must meet him at the station.” Ruth departed with the message and the Judge again took up the letter in which a child had been offered for his adoption. Very closely he scrutinized the handwriting, but it was not a familiar one to him. He had never seen it before, and, tearing the paper in pieces, he scattered them upon the floor. The storm by this time had partially subsided, and he heard the carriage wheels grinding into the gravel as Joe drove from the house. Half an hour went by, and then the carriage returned again; but Richard was not in it, and the father sat down alone to the supper kept in waiting for his son. It was a peculiarity of the Judge to retire precisely at nine o’clock; neither friend nor foe could keep him up beyond that hour, he said; and on this evening, as on all others, the lights disappeared from his room just as the nine o’clock bell was heard in the distance. But the Judge was nervous to-night. The thunder which at intervals continued to roar, made him restless, and ten o’clock found him even more wakeful than he had been an hour before. “What the plague ails me?” he exclaimed, tossing uneasily from side to side, “and what the deuce can that be? Rachel’s baby as I live! What is she doing with it here? If there’s anything I detest, it is a baby’s squall. Just hear that, will you?” and raising himself upon his elbow he listened intently to what was indisputably an infant wail, rising even above the storm, for it had commenced raining again, and the thunder at times was fearfully loud.