Joe tossed the night through with his longing for Alice, which gnawed him like hunger and would not yield to sleep, for in his dreams his heart went out after her; he heard her voice caressing his name. He woke with the feeling that he must put the thought of Alice away from him, and frame in his mind what he should say when it came his turn to stand before Judge Maxwell and tell his story. If by some hinted thing, some shade of speech, some qualification which a gentleman would grasp and understand, he might convey his reason to the judge, he felt that he must come clear. He pondered it a long time, and the face of the judge rose before him, and the eyes were brown and the hair in soft wavelets above a white forehead, and Alice stood in judgment over him. So it always ended; it was before Alice that he must plead and justify himself. She was his judge, his jury, and his world. It was mid-afternoon when Mrs. Newbolt arrived for her last visit before the trial. She came down to his door in her somber dress, tall, bony and severe, thinner of face herself than she had been before, her eyes bright with the affection for her boy which her tongue never put into words. Her shoes were muddy, and the hem of her skirt draggled, for, high as she had held it in her heavy tramp, it had become splashed by the pools in the soft highway. "Mother, you shouldn't have come today over the bad roads," said Joe with affectionate reproof. "Lands, what's a little mud!" said she, putting down a small bundle which she bore. "Well, it'll be froze up by tomorrow, I reckon, it's turnin' sharp and cold." She looked at Joe anxiously, every shadow in his worn face carving its counterpart in her heart. There was no smile of gladness on her lips, for smiles had been so long apart from her life that the nerves which commanded them had grown stiff and hard. "Yes," said Joe, taking up her last words, "winter will be here in a little while now. I'll be out then, Mother, to lay in wood for you. It won't be long now." "Lord bless you, son!" said she, the words catching in her throat, tears rising to her eyes and standing so heavy that she must wipe them away. "It will all be settled next week," Joe told her confidently. "I hope they won't put it off no more," said she wearily. "No; Hammer says they're sure to go ahead this time." "Ollie drove over yesterday evening and brought your things from Isom's," said she, lifting the bundle from the floor, forcing it to him between the bars. "I brought you a couple of clean shirts, for I knew you'd want one for tomorrow." "Yes, Mother, I'm glad you brought them," said Joe. "Ollie, she said she never would make you put in the rest of your time there if she had anything to say about it. But she said if Judge Little got them letters of administration he was after she expected he'd try to hold us to it, from what he said." "No matter, Mother."