"Oh well, the children's little quarrels were too much for her nerves." "I suppose so." They were silent and thoughtful, sitting together, rocking gently in their chairs as the twilight stole into the room. "It's too bad he's going to study law," the judge said after a while. He shook his gray head dubiously. "But you always say that about any one who's going to study law," Mrs. Blair argued. "You even said it about George Halliday when his father took him into partnership." "Well, it's bad business nowadays unless a young man wants to go to the city, and it's hard to get a foothold there." "But you began as a lawyer," she urged, as though he had finished as something else. "It was different in my day." "And you've always done well in the law," Mrs. Blair went on, ignoring his distinction. "Oh yes," the judge said in a tone that expressed a sense of individual exception. "But I went on the bench just in time to save my bacon. There's no telling what might have become of us if I had remained in the practice." They were silent long enough for him to feel the relief he had always found in his salaried position, and then he said: "You don't suppose--" "Oh, certainly not!" his wife hastened to assure him. "Well, I think it would be well, perhaps, to watch her closely. I don't just like the notion." "But his father is--" "Yes, but after all, we really know nothing about him." "That is true." "And then Lavinia's so young." "Yes." "I'd go to her." "After a while," Mrs. Blair said. They heard steps on the veranda, and then the voices of Mr. and Mrs. Chenowith who had run across, as Mrs. Chenowith said, when Mrs. Blair met them in the darkness that filled the wide hall, to see how they all were. The Chenowiths begged Mrs. Blair not to light the gas; they preferred to sit out of doors. The Chenowiths remained all the evening. When they had gone, the judge drew the chairs indoors, while Mrs. Blair rolled up the wide strip of red carpet that covered the steps of the veranda. And when they had gone up to their room, Mrs. Blair stole across to Lavinia, softly closing the door behind her. She found the girl stretched on her bed, her face buried in the pillows, which were wet with her tears. "What is troubling my little girl?" she asked. She sat down on the side of the bed, and lightly stroked Lavinia's soft hair. The girl stirred, and drew herself close to her mother. Mrs. Blair did not speak, but continued to stroke her hair, and waited. Presently Lavinia cried out: "Oh, mama! mama!" And then she was in her mother's arms, weeping on her mother's breast. "I've never kept anything from you before, mama," Lavinia cried. "No," Mrs. Blair whispered. "Can't you tell mama now?"