The opera-glasses might have atoned for the deprivation of the ball, had Marley been able to think of them with any comfort. The delight Lavinia expressed in a gift she could never use in Macochee, and the enthusiasm with which Connie admired them, made him nervous and guilty. Connie had temporarily foregone her claims to young-ladyhood, and was a child again for a little while. Her excitement and that of Chad should have made any Christmas Eve merry, but it was not a merry Christmas Eve for Marley. As Lavinia and he sat in the parlor they caught now and then, or imagined they caught, the strains of the orchestra that was playing for the dancers in the Odd Fellows' Hall, and they were both conscious that life would be tolerable for them only when the music should cease and the ball take its place among the things of the past, incapable of further trouble in the earth. "It's very trying," said Judge Blair to his wife that night. "I wish there was something we could do." "So do I," his wife acquiesced. "I don't like to see Lavinia cut off this way from every enjoyment. The strain must be very wearing." "I suppose it is very wearing with most lovers," said Mrs. Blair. "I don't see how they ever endure it; but they all do." "Have you talked with her about it?" The judge put his question with a guarded look, and was not surprised when his wife quickly replied: "Gracious, no. I'd never dare." "No, I presume not. I don't know who would, unless it might be Connie." Mrs. Blair was silent for a while in the trouble that was all the more serious because they dared not recognize its seriousness, and then she asked: "Couldn't you help him to something?" "I don't know what," the judge replied. "There's really no opening in a little town." "If you were off the bench and back in the practice--" "Great heavens!" he interrupted her. "Don't mention such a thing!" "I meant that you might take him in with you." "I'd be looking around for some one to take me in," the judge said. "I'm glad I haven't the problem to face." He enjoyed for a moment the snug sense he had in his own position and then he sighed. "He's young, he has that, anyway. He'll work it out somehow, I suppose, though I don't know how. As for us, all we can do is to have patience, and wait." "Yes, that's all," said Mrs. Blair. "I don't believe in long engagements." "How long has it been?" he asked. "Nearly a year now." "I thought it had been ten." Mrs. Blair laughed as she said: "Connie was wishing this morning that he'd marry her and get it over with." CHAPTER XXII AN ADVERTISEMENT OF DESTINY