But Miss Judy was not thinking about the judge's wife on that midsummer night. It was enough for her perfect happiness merely to have him there, settled for the evening in her father's arm-chair, which was fetched out of the parlor for him and never for any one else. It was delight only to look at him, smiling at her across the passage--wherein they sat because it was cooler than the room--quite like old times. He was a very handsome, very tall man, of slender but muscular build, stooping slightly from his great height through much bending over books. His head was fine, with a noble width of brow; his thick hair, once very dark, was now silvered about the temples; but his eyes were as dark as ever, and undimmed in their clear, steady brightness. His face was sensitive in its clean-shaven delicacy, and pale with the pallor of the student. It was not so sad though on that night as usual, nor nearly so grave. He was rested and soothed and cheered--this famous man of large affairs--by listening to Miss Judy's gentle twittering, so kind, so loving. It pleased him to see the little things that she had done in preparation for his coming. He smiled at the sight of the small basket of rosy peaches daintily set about with maidenhair fern. He did not know that in order to get the fruit Miss Judy had made a hard bargain with the thrifty Mrs. Beauchamp, who had the only early peaches,--a very hard bargain whereby the little lady went without butter on her bread for a good many days. Nor did he suspect that she had climbed to the top of the steepest hillside trying to reach the woods, regardless of the fluttering of her heart; or that she had ventured bravely even into the shadiest dell, heedless of her fear of snakes, in order to get his favorite fern to wreathe his favorite fruit. Perhaps no man ever knows what the pleasing of him costs a loving woman; certainly no loving woman ever takes the cost into account.