* * * * * Judge Tiffany, sitting within the front window to watch the shimmer of a pleasant Sunday afternoon on the city roofs below, perceived that his wife had walked three times to that garden wall which looked down along the drop of Broadway to the Spanish Church. The second time that he perceived this phenomenon, his eyes showed interest; the third he smiled with inner satisfaction and rose to meet her return as though by accident. He was leaning upon a cane, getting ease of the sciatica which plagued him. The Judge had aged during the two years since he opened these events. He had settled now into the worldly state of a man who rests content with the warming sun and the bright air which feed life. But the inner soul, whose depth was his philosophy, whose surface his whimsical humor--that still burned in his dark blue eyes. Those eyes glistened a little as he went on to this, his daily sport. He met her on the piazza. She had raked the rise of Broadway, which one mounted by two blocks of hen-coop sidewalks; and now she was inspecting the cross street. "All the Sherlock Holmes in me," said Judge Tiffany, "tells me that Miss Eleanor Gray is going to have a caller, and that Mrs. Edward C. Tiffany is in a state of vicarious perturbation. "Further," continued Judge Tiffany, dropping his hand upon her arm with that affectionate gesture which drew all sting his words might have carried, "this is no common caller. For that young civil engineer and Mr. Perham the painter and Ned Greene, Mrs. Tiffany never blushes; but these new attentions to her niece--well, I hope my approach drew as much blood from her heart to her countenance twenty-five years ago!" "I--I _am_ perturbed," said Mattie Tiffany. Running rose-bushes, just leafing out into their fall greenery, overgrew the pillars beside her. These she fell to pruning with her hands, so that she turned away her face. "I see that discipline is relaxing in this family," said Judge Tiffany. "Dear, dear, after managing a wife bravely and well for a quarter century, to fail in one's age! Mattie, he works in my office, this blush-compelling caller; and I told you when I gave him the position not to take him up socially for the present!" "But what was I to do when he telephoned to Eleanor and asked her?" Mrs. Tiffany turned her head with a turn of her thought. "Did you hear him telephone--was that how you knew?" "I'd lose all hold on discipline if I revealed my methods." Judge Tiffany settled himself in an armchair as one prepared to make it a long session. "Let's begin at the start. How came he to renew his acquaintance with Eleanor, and when, and where--and how much had Mattie Tiffany to do with bringing them together again?"