The deepest wish in Jabel's heart, next to establishing a national bank in Ross Valley, was to see the marriage between Kate Dunlevy and the MacNair family brought to pass; yet such was his reverence for the Dunlevys and so great his antagonism to the Washington Lobby that he was half inclined to be himself the means of breaking off the match between the daughter of his great neighbor and exemplar and the son of his old chum and companion. Jabel took his way to the house of the old Circuit Judge, which was one of a row of tall brown-stone structures not far from the city hall, and when he rang the bell a servant showed him to a library in the second story, where the Judge was dictating certain judicial opinions to his daughter. The two elderly men retired to an adjacent apartment, which seemed, from its appointments and the character of needlework and literature strewn about, to be the _boudoir_ of Miss Dunlevy; and the Judge, who was somewhat past the prime of life, plunged into a long story about Ross Valley and its early settlement, speaking much of the time with his eyes closed in a sort of half reverie, while Jabel, who occupied a seat nearer to the library, was meantime overhearing a conversation between Kate Dunlevy and young Elk MacNair, who had followed hard upon Jabel's heels. The old Judge meantime, used to their voices, paused only to remark that he thought Elk MacNair one of the strongest, most brilliant, and most promising men in the nation, and then went on with his dissertation upon pioneer days among the spurs of the Alleghenies. Jabel, however, who was an attentive, inquisitive busybody, and who lived in a part of the country where folks of quality and large pursuits were few, observed that the two voices in the next room were lowered, and that their key, while not so high, was yet even more startling than before. "Kate," said Elk MacNair, "I had counted upon my brother as an assured ally in something of the most momentous importance to me at this juncture, before our marriage. My brother is a man of power, but of narrow views, and I have unconsciously aroused his animosity. He is not to be appeased. Nothing can divert him from his purpose. "It can be nothing, if Arthur is the arbiter and your happiness the subject," said Miss Dunlevy. "It is a point of honor differently taken by two men," said Elk MacNair; "and the issue is a matter of character. It is a matter of fortune besides, and if neither relents both will suffer." These words were attended with some emotion which smote the rough feelings of Jabel Blake, and he was a witness of some subsidiary endearments, besides, which softened his indignation against the young officer. So he followed Elk MacNair from the house and accosted him upon the street.