"Aunt! Aunt! dear, good, kind Aunt!" cried the young girl, throwing herself into the widow's arms and giving her such a hug and such a storm of kisses as would have made Frank Wallace whistle "Hail Columbia" and "Abraham's Daughter" for forty-eight hours in succession. Such was the radical effect, towards carrying out his determination in regard to each of the two rivals, produced by Judge Owen's ultimatum. He was not the first man, and he probably will not be the last, to pour the drop too much into the bucket of endurance and add that last feather to the load which weighs down the camel of patience. Something more of the "effect" will be seen in this immediate connection. Judge Owen had occasion to attend a political caucus, at one of the down-town hotels, early in the evening of the second day from that on which the collision with his sister and daughter had occurred; and he consequently did not go home to dinner when his court adjourned. He dined at the hotel where the caucus took place, and afterwards strolled up Broadway, airing his portly figure, and intending to take the Third-Avenue cars at Astor Place or Fourteenth Street. When he came opposite Wallack's Theatre, at about nine o'clock, the lights shone brightly before the door, the placards announcing the "Returned Volunteer" and "Mischievous Annie" looked tempting, and as Judge Owen had an eye for the drama and was officially marked "D.H." on the book at the gate, he concluded to see the balance of the performance. He passed in. Florence was just indulging in that terrible war-dance of jealousy which follows the supposed discovery of the fact that the wife of Bill Williams has taken up with a Picaninny, and the laughter and applause were uproarious. The Judge found some acquaintances in the lobby, and chatted with them while he watched the piece and while waiting for the next. Finally another friend, a family acquaintance, came up the aisle, from the orchestra-seats, probably on his way to those pleasant lower regions in which refreshment to the inner man is dispensed. As he shook hands with the Judge, he said: "Ah, Judge, I did not know that you were here. I saw your daughter, just now, down in the orchestra, but I am sure she did not come in with you." "My daughter!" said the Judge, surprised, "I think you must be mistaken. Mrs. Owen did not speak of coming to the theatre this evening." "Oh," said the acquaintance, "Mrs. Owen is not here. I should have seen her if she had been. Your daughter came in with a young man, and they are sitting together down there in the second row from the front." "You do not know the young man?" asked the Judge, on whom the compound noun for some cause produced an unpleasant effect. "No," answered the acquaintance, "I do not know him. He is a rather good-looking young fellow, short, with brown curly hair, and a moustache, and dressed in light-gray. No doubt you know him by the description."