But then, on the other hand, perhaps no woman, however loving, ever can fully realize how much unstinted tenderness may mean to the greatest, the gravest, the most reserved of men, when he has never found it in his own home or anywhere else in all the cold world, which he has conquered by giving up the warmth and sweetness of life--as they must be given up by every conqueror of the region of perpetual ice. Miss Judy's gentle love now enfolded him like a soft, warm mantle, so that the chill at his heart melted away. It was then very sweet on that fragrant midsummer night, to this sad and weary man, to hear Miss Judy babbling gently on. He did not always listen to what she said; but the sound of her soft voice seemed for the moment to take away all weariness and pain, as she talked to him of the people and the things that he had known in his youth. She said about the same over and over, to be sure, almost every time he came, but that made no difference whatever; it was the sweetness of her spirit, the peace of her presence, that the great judge craved and loved and rested upon. "And now, John, here are a few peaches--just the kind you like," Miss Judy said, in her artlessly artful little way, as if the pretty basket had only that moment fallen from the clouds--as she always said when he had sat a certain length of time in her father's chair in the coolest corner of the passage. "Why,--so they are!" exclaimed the judge, in delighted surprise, as he always exclaimed when the peaches were offered precisely at the time when he expected them to be. "How in the world do you always remember--never once forgetting--from year to year? And these are the prettiest of all. See the rose velvet of that peach's bloom." And then Miss Judy, delighted, and beaming, bustled about, spreading her mother's best napkin over the judge's knees and under the plate (the prettiest one with the wreath of forget-me-nots), wishing with all her loving heart that she might find a pretext for tying something around his dear neck. When she had put an old silver knife in his hand,--after being as long about it as she could be--conscientiously,--she gave Miss Sophia also a share of the rosy feast, and then sat down with a sigh of complete content, and looked at them positively radiating happiness; the happiness which only such a woman can feel in seeing those whom she loves enjoying pleasures and privileges which she never claims nor even thinks of, for herself.