"He is only a year or two older than my Tom," began the judge, tripping in his usually steady speech. "I assure you it will give me pleasure to have the boys thrown together." Mrs. Webb bowed in unaffirmative fashion. "On my life, ma'am, I can't forget that Julius Webb fell at Brandy Station," put in the general hotly. "Your husband died for Virginia, and your boy shall not want while I have a penny in my pocket. I'll send him to college with Bernard, and feel it to be a privilege!" Mrs. Webb bowed again. "A great privilege, ma'am," protested the general, uneasily. Mrs. Webb smiled. "The greatest privilege of my life, ma'am!" cried the general, his face flushing and his eyes growing round with agitation. In the end they gained their point, and Mrs. Webb consented, but with a reluctance of reserve which caused the general to choke with embarrassment and the judge to become speechless from perplexity. When they rose to leave both thanked her with effusion and both bowed themselves out as gratefully as if it were a royal drawing-room and they had received the honours of knighthood. "She is a remarkable woman!" exclaimed the general, wiping his eyes on his white silk handkerchief as they descended the steps. "A most unusual woman! Why, I feel positively unworthy to sit in her presence. Her manner brings all my past indiscretions to mind. It is an honour to have such a character in the community, sir!" The judge acquiesced silently. The interview had tried his Epicurean fortitude, and he was wondering if it would be necessary to repeat the call before Christmas. "If Julius Webb had lived she would have made a man of him," continued the general enthusiastically, the purple flush slowly fading from his flabby face. "A creature who could live with that woman and not be made a man of wouldn't be human; he'd be a hound. There is dignity in every inch of her, sir. I will allow no man to question my respect for our immortal Lee--but if Jane Webb had been the commander of our armies, we should be standing now upon Confederate soil--" "Or upon the ashes of it," suggested the judge, adding apologetically, "she is indeed a woman in a thousand." He held it to be a lack of courtesy to dissent from praise of any woman whose chastity was beyond impeachment, as he held it to be an absence of propriety to unite in admiration of one who was wanting in the supremest of the feminine virtues. His code was an obvious one, and he had never seen cause to depart from it. "I hope the boy will be worthy of her," he said. "It is a good name that he bears." The general took off his straw hat and mopped his brow. "Worthy of her!" he exclaimed. "He's got to be worthy of her, sir. If he takes any notion in his head not to be, I'll thrash him within an inch of his life. Let him try it, the young scamp!"