"Hole on dar, Mars Jedge; Miss Alice is ergwine ter cum jes ez soon ez she washes de smut offen her face und slicks back her eyebrows. My king! duz yu speks er high quality lady lak my yung missis kin do eberyting in wun minit? She haint ergwine ter brake her neck kase a jedge cums heer a courtin her. My missis seed jedges fore ter-day; yu aint de onliest jedge she ever seed." And with this confusing declamation Clarissa shuffled out of the parlor with the parting remark, "Yu's stay rite whar yu is twell she cums." When the negro had gone the judge laughed immoderately. Indeed, he was laughing with wide-open mouth as Alice entered the parlor, and advanced to grasp her hand, confused and stammering. "Ah, permit me," he said, "er, er, er, to felicitate myself that you have given me the pleasure of this interview." Alice felt a suspicion that the old negress had been amusing the learned judge in her droll way, but she did not know to what extent she had been compromised by her oddities and ignorance, and to quiet her apprehensions as far as she could, she asked with seriousness: "How long have you been in our county?" "It is my first visit, and I have greatly enjoyed it," replied the judge, with an effort to conceal his mirth. "The South has been an object lesson of great educational value to me." "Ah! and who are your teachers?" asked Alice. "Why, who can they be but the negroes?" replied the judge interrogatively. "I am quite surprised!" exclaimed the young lady. "Not so much so as I have been, I am sure," the judge replied. "I am a Northern man with a heart firmly set against what I believed to be the vagaries of Southern people: absorbing the sentiments and convictions of my home folks; but since I have been in your country I have discovered that the South has been outraged and scandalized beyond the point of endurance. Do you know," he continued argumentatively, "that I have never seen among my most intimate friends truer or nobler men, and I have never seen in the jails and penitentiaries of the north a criminal class more hardened and vicious than these wretches whom you call carpet-baggers." "Yes, indeed," replied Alice reflectively, "they have given us a great deal of trouble, and we are so glad that you have punished the infamous wretch Laflin, who has incited the negroes to acts of violence and bloodshed." "Yes," replied the judge, "I only regret that the law interposed a limit to the measure of punishment. I would have been glad to have sentenced the villain for life to the penitentiary at hard labor. "By the way, Miss Seymour, the governor bade me say to your father that he would join us here to-day. Will you convey the message to him at your leisure?" "Thank you, sir," said the girl. "Pray excuse me for a moment. My father will be delighted to receive the information; the governor is an old and dear friend."