"What is it?" Kit teased. "I think you might tell us too. I didn't know that Cousin Roxy knew the Judge."
"They were engaged years ago, dear," Mrs. Robbins explained, "and quarrelled. That is all. Now he thinks he is dying and has sent for her. And I suppose underneath all her odd ways, that she loves him after all."
It was the first romance that had blossomed at Gilead Center and the girls felt as eager over it as though the participants had been twenty instead of fifty years of age. They waited eagerly for Ella Lou's white nose to show around the turn of the drive, but night came on and passed, and it was well into the next afternoon before Billie drove in alone.
"Grandfather'd like to have Mr. Robbins come down and draw up his will. Cousin Roxy says he's been a lawyer, and there isn't another one anywhere around."
"But, Billie, he isn't strong enough," began Mrs. Robbins. She was sitting out on the broad veranda, a basket of mending on her lap, and in the big steamer chair beside her was Mr. Robbins. "Is the Judge worse?"
"Oh, no, he's better. Aunt Roxy fixed him right up. He'd just eaten too much, she said."
"I think I should like to go, dear," said Mr. Robbins. "You could go with me, or Jean, and I should like to meet him again. I knew him when I was a boy up here."
It was his first trip away from the house since they had moved there, but now that the time had come, it seemed an easy thing to do, as if the strength had been granted to him to meet just such a crisis. Mrs. Robbins accompanied him, and they drove over through the village and up two miles beyond until they came to the Judge's home, a large square colonial residence on a hill, surrounded by tall elms and rock maples. The green blinds were all carefully closed excepting in the south chamber where Roxy held supreme sway now. She sat by his bedside, wielding a large palm leaf fan, spick and span in her dress of white linen, and there was a bunch of dahlias on the table.
"Come in, come in, boy," the Judge said in his deep voice. He stretched out his hand to Mr. Robbins, and nodded his head. Such a fine old head it was, as it lay propped up on the big square feather pillows, a head like Victor Hugo's or Henri Rochefort's. The thick curly white hair grew in deep points about his temples, and his moustache and imperial were white and curly too. There was a look in his eyes that told of an indomitable will, but they softened when they rested on his visitor.
"Sit down, lad; no, the easy chair. Roxy, give him the easy one. So. Well, they try their best to get us, don't they? I thought last night would be my last."