This was the way in which Miss Lucretia treated her lover after thirty years! Cynthia thought of what the lady had said to her a few hours since, by this very fire, and began to believe she must have dreamed it. Fires look very differently at night—and sometimes burn brighter then. The judge parted his coat tails, and seated himself on the wooden edge of a cane-bottomed chair.
"Lucretia," he said, "you haven't changed."
"You have, Ezra," she replied, looking at the Adam's apple.
"I'm an old man," said Ezra Graves.
Cynthia could not help thinking that he was a very different man, in Miss
Lucretia's presence, than when at the head of the prudential committee.
"Ezra," said Miss Lucretia, "for a man you do very well."
The judge smiled.
"Thank you, Lucretia," said he. He seemed to appreciate the full extent of the compliment.
"Judge Graves," said Cynthia, "I can tell you how good you are, at least, and thank you for your great kindness to me, which I shall never forget."
She took his withered hands from his knees and pressed them. He returned the pressure, and then searched his coat tails, found a handkerchief, and blew his nose violently.