The Judge stared dreamily into the fire. What a strange child! He must take the greatest pains to find a home suitable for her in every respect.
CHAPTER VIII
To Adopt or Not to Adopt
“Are you going out?” asked Bethany, wistfully, of the Judge the next morning.
She had breakfasted with the Judge. She had disappeared afterward to visit the pigeon loft with Titus, and then when he left the house to call on his friend Charlie she had gone to the Judge’s study to play with Sukey. Now she stood regretfully watching him button on his overcoat.
“Yes, I am,” he replied. “I have a call to make; would you like to go with me?” he asked, as an afterthought.
Her little face beamed. That was just what she wanted.
“But you haven’t any wraps,” said the Judge. “However, I can bundle you up in something, and Roblee will drive us to Furst Brothers. There we will find everything under one roof. Here you are,” and, laughing like a boy, he smothered her up in the fur coat that he intended to give Mafferty and carried her out to the sleigh.
A quiet-living man, a man of simple pleasures, one who rarely experienced new sensations, the trip through Furst Brothers’ establishment was as full of interest to the Judge as a voyage of exploration would have been to another man.
First they visited the fur department, where Bethany stood in rapt silence, with shining eyes which she sometimes tightly closed, and then suddenly opened to make sure that it was not all a dream, while an obsequious shopwoman tried on one little coat after another.
The Judge’s choice finally fell on a white one with a cap to match, and Bethany was clad in it. The Judge directed the woman to let the coat hang open, as the store was very warm. The little cap was put on, however, and, tightly holding his hand and occasionally glancing down to smooth the pretty blue satin lining, Bethany walked as if in a trance to the shoe department.