"Ah don't quite gathah youah meanin' suh," said she, "but Ah think not, suh."
"You're the teacher of the Boggs School, in Teal Lake Township?"
"Oh, yes, suh!" said she. "Pahdon me! I thought you inquiahed about something else."
Judge Worthington started as if struck by a dart.
"Let me see the papers in the case," said he excitedly.
Beasley handed them up, and the judge examined them carefully. Then he handed them down, turned his back on Miss Frayn, and spoke in a low tone, like one greatly shocked.
"Proceed!" said he.
Something in his tone or in the turning of his back seemed to strike upon the senses of Miss Frayn as unpleasant or hostile. The few questions put to her by the lawyer to lay the foundation for some other bit of evidence did not appear to affect her at all; and when she took her seat between Chester and my mother, and was reassured by their whispered communications, she looked serene, save when she noted the judge's averted face. Chester's lawyer spoke insinuatingly of spite, prejudice, and unreasonable provincialism as being at the bottom of the case.
"And," he added, "I may add jealousy—jealousy, your Honor, of the defendant's charms of person, which, as a part of the res gestæ, are evidence in this case, if your honor only would observe them."
The judge started and blushed, but still looked steadily away. Mr. Middlekauff looked relieved. Miss Frayn fretted the linoleum with little taps of her toe, and her delicate nostrils fluttered. There was a mystic tension in the air.