"Whom you cannot help but like. A good man, conscientious and yet not creed-bound."
"He is building up a great church," said Mrs. Elbridge. "It is almost impossible to get a seat."
"Ah, I don't attend as regularly as I should," remarked the Judge, "but I am going to mend my ways. Howard, shall we go together soon?"
"I shall be delighted, sir."
"Then let us appoint an early day."
The father and the son laughed with each other, and to the mother it was as if new strings, to replace broken ones, had been put upon an old guitar, and she was happy merely to listen; but soon she was called away, attendant upon some duty, and then a darkness fell upon the old man's countenance. "Enough of this," he said. And there was more than surprise in the look which Howard gave him—there was grief in it. "Then your good humor was assumed," he replied.
"We may assume good humor as we assume honesty—for policy," the Judge rejoined.
"I swear I don't understand you."
"Then don't strive to do so when your mother is present. At such times, take me as you find me."
"My pleasure just now was real. It is a grief to know that yours was not. I was in hopes that our difference, whatever it is, for I don't know, was at an end. You led me to believe so."