He crossed to one of the tall windows, unfastening the heavy inside shutters, from which the white paint was fast peeling away. As they fell back a breeze filled the room, and the ivory faces of microphylla roses stared across the deep window-seat. The place was airy as a summer-house and odorous with the essence of roses distilled in the sunshine beyond. On the high plastered walls, above the book-shelves, rows of bygone Bassetts looked down on their departed possessions--stately and severe in the artificial severity of periwigs and starched ruffles. They looked down with immobile eyes and the placid monotony of past fashions, smiling always the same smile, staring always at the same spot of floor or furniture. Below them the room was still hallowed by their touch. They asserted themselves in the quaint curves of the rosewood chairs, in the blue patterns upon the willow bowls, and in the choice lavender of the old Wedgwood. Their handiwork was visible in the laborious embroideries of the fire-screen near the empty grate, and the spinet in one unlighted corner still guarded their gay and amiable airs. "Sit down," said the judge. "I am at your service." He seated himself before his desk of hand-carved mahogany, pushing aside the papers that littered its baize-covered lid. In the half-gloom of the high-ceiled room his face assumed the look of a portrait in oils, and he seemed to have descended from his allotted square upon the plastered wall, to be but a boldly limned composite likeness of his race, awaiting the last touches and the gilded frame. "What can I do for you?" he asked again, his tone preserving its unfailing courtesy. He had not made an uncivil remark since the close of the war--a line of conduct resulting less from what he felt to be due to others than from what he believed to be becoming in himself. The boy shifted on his bare feet. In the old-timed setting of the furniture he was an alien--an anachronism--the intrusion of the hopelessly modern into the helplessly past. His hair made a rich spot in the colourless atmosphere, and it seemed to focus the incoming light from the unshuttered window, leaving the background in denser shadow. The animation of his features jarred the serenity of the room. His profile showed gnome-like against the nodding heads of the microphylla roses. "There ain't nothin' in peanut-raisin'," he said suddenly; "I--I'd ruther be a judge." "My dear boy!" exclaimed the judge, and finished helplessly, "my dear boy--I--well--I--" They were both silent. The regular droning of the old clock sounded distinctly in the stillness. The perfume of roses, mingling with the musty scent from the furniture, borrowed the quality of musk. The child was breathing heavily. Suddenly he dug the dirty knuckles of one fist into his eyes. "Don't cry," began the judge. "Please don't. Perhaps you would like to run out and play with my boy Tom?" "I warn't cryin'," said the child. "It war a gnat."