“It is a very strange story, Hannibal, and its links are not all in my hands, but I am sure because of what I already know. I, who thought that not a drop of my blood flowed in any veins but my own, live again in you. Do you understand what I am telling you? Your are my own dear little grandson--” and the judge looked down with no uncertain love and pride into the small face upturned to his. “I am glad if you are my grandfather, judge,” said Hannibal very gravely. “I always liked you.” “Thank you, dear lad,” responded the judge with equal gravity, and then as Hannibal nestled back in his grandfather's arms a single big tear dropped from the end of that gentleman's prominent nose. “There will be many and great changes in store for us,” continued the judge. “But as we met adversity with dignity, I am sure we shall be able to endure prosperity with equanimity, only unworthy natures are affected by what is at best superficial and accidental. I mean that the blight of poverty is about to be lifted from our lives.” “Do you mean we ain't going to be pore any longer, grandfather?” asked Hannibal. The judge regarded him with infinite tenderness of expression; he was profoundly moved. “Would you mind saying that again, dear lad?” “Do you mean we ain't going to be pore any longer, grandfather?” repeated Hannibal. “I shall enjoy an adequate competency which I am about to recover. It will be sufficient for the indulgence of those simple and intellectual tastes I propose to cultivate for the future.” In spite of himself the judge sighed. This was hardly in line with his ideals, but the right to choose was no longer his. “You will be very rich, Hannibal. The Quintard lands--your grandmother was a Quintard--will be yours; they run up into the hundred of thousand of acres here about; this land will all be yours as soon as I can establish your identity.” “Will Uncle Bob be rich too?” inquired Hannibal. “Certainly. How can he be poor when we possess wealth?” answered the judge. “You reckon he will always live with us, don't you, grandfather?” “I would not have it otherwise. I admire Mr. Yancy--he is simple and direct, and fit for any company under heaven except that of fools. His treatment of you has placed me under everlasting obligations; he shall share what we have. My one bitter, unavailing regret is that Solomon Mahaffy will not be here to partake of our altered fortunes.” And the judge sighed deeply. “Uncle Bob told me Mr. Mahaffy got hurt in a duel, grandfather?” said Hannibal. “He was as inexperienced as a child in the use of firearms, and he had to deal with scoundrels who had neither mercy nor generous feeling--but his courage was magnificent.” Presently Hannibal was deep in his account of those adventures he had shared with Miss Betty. “And Miss Malroy--where is she now?” asked the judge, in the first pause of the boy's narrative.