"I pity any poor soul that ties herself to such a man as that from the bottom of my heart," said Miss Anastasia Perkins in great sympathy. "Why she won't know whether she is married or not, neither will he; just as likely as not he will go courting somebody else with his poor wife a sitting back in the chimney corner in the ashes." "And there is another pint I haint ever said anything about, but I think it ought to be known here betwixt ourselves and not to go any further" said, Miss Martha Gallop "but the way he treated his poor wife Malindy was a purified scandal. Now I aint a telling you this as coming from me, for the good Lord knows when that thing happened, I was a little teensy weensy tot, (with a coquettish toss of her antique head) but old aunt Mehetibel Parsley knows all about it, and I've heard her say over and over again that when Judge Bonham and Malindy would be riding in their carriage to meeting that he would forget where he was going and would fetch up right against the poor house three miles or more in the other direction, and that poor mournful woman would be a sitting back in the carriage with eyes as red as a gander's, and a looking pine plank like she was coming from a funeral." "Oh the cruel, cruel monster!" came another refrain, and skinny fists would double up and strike against ancient knees like resounding boards, and the spinsters would all heave great, tumultuous sighs, and corkscrew curls, like spiral springs, would dance up and down mechanically upon their well oiled pivots. Judge Bonham was quite nervously gravitating toward a situation that required great force of character; a situation always extra hazardous and demanding the exercise of every resource. This phlegmatic man was running the biblical parallel, dreaming dreams and seeing visions; not the distorted creations of the night-mare, but beautiful little crayons of love, swinging like tiny acrobats from blue ribbons on the walls, and descending like vagrant sunbeams upon the vermillion carpet; composite faces, too, with bright golden hair and brighter blue eyes. The old gentleman sat back in his easy chair, thinking of the captivating beauty over at Ingleside, and there were ecstatic little chimes ringing in his ears, and their chorus always was this, "I don't care what the gossips say, I shall marry some fair day." "But am I really in love?" asked he. It was a perplexing question to a mind unusually acute and active in the powers of analysis and synthesis; to a mind that could grasp, multiply and divide remainders, particular estates and reversions in all their infiniteness. And the old man began to ponder seriously upon the situation. Something quite unusual and quite unnatural was tinkering upon the frayed out heart strings of the old judge, until the learned man quite bewildered found himself addressing his reflected image in the mirror.