I rejoice to hear that she now wishes to spare her father,
but--you will pardon me, Burke?--she was hasty; she was hasty. It is
easier to set forces of love or hate moving than to check them in motion.
Sometimes I think, Burke, that people were in certain ways less reckless
in the good old days when they had perpetually before their eyes the
vision of a hair-trigger God, always cocked and ready to shoot if they
crossed the line of duty. But Nelly is coming bravely through a severe
test of character. May I offer you both my heartiest--"
It was just at that happy moment that the office boy announced Mr. Winship
to share the Judge's kind wishes; and by good luck in came also Mrs.
Baker, but a moment behind him.
"Why, Ezra!" she chirped in a flutter of amazed cordiality at sight of her
husband's visitor. "You in New York? Why, for Nelly's wedding, of course!
John Burke, why've you kept us in the dark these months and months? I'm--
I'm really ashamed of you!"
Her plump gloved hands seized Mr. Winship's, while her small, swift, bird-
like eyes looked reproach at me.
"Patience, Mrs. Baker; patience!" rejoined the Judge.
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