They were silent and thoughtful, sitting together, rocking gently in their chairs as the twilight stole into the room.
“It’s too bad he’s going to study law,” the judge said after a while.
He shook his gray head dubiously.
“But you always say that about any one who’s going to study law,” Mrs. Blair argued. “You even said it about George Halliday when his father took him into partnership.”
“Well, it’s bad business nowadays unless a young man wants to go to the city, and it’s hard to get a foothold there.”
“But you began as a lawyer,” she urged, as though he had finished as something else.
“It was different in my day.”
“And you’ve always done well in the law,” Mrs. Blair went on, ignoring his distinction.
“Oh yes,” the judge said in a tone that expressed a sense of individual exception. “But I went on the bench just in time to save my bacon. There’s no telling what might have become of us if I had remained in the practice.”
They were silent long enough for him to feel the relief he had always found in his salaried position, and then he said: