"
The judge and Mr. Mahaffy were camped in the woods between Boggs'
and Raleigh. Betty had carried Hannibal off to spend the night
at Belle Plain, Carrington had disappeared with Charley Norton;
but the judge and Mahaffy had lingered in the meadow until the
last refreshment booth struck its colors to the twilight, and
they had not lingered in vain. The judge threw himself at full
length on the ground, and Mahaffy dropped at his side. About
them, in the ruddy glow of their camp-fire, rose the dark wall of
the forest.
"I crave opportunity, Solomon--the indorsement of my own class.
I feel that I shall have it here," resumed the judge pensively.
But Mahaffy was sad in his joy, sober in his incipientent
drunkenness. The same handsome treatment which the judge
commended, had been as freely tendered him, yet he saw the end of
all such hospitality. This was the worm in the bud. The judge,
however, was an eager idealist; he still dreamed of Utopia, he
still believed in millenniums. Mahaffy didn't and couldn't.
Memory was the scarecrow in the garden of his hopes--you could
wear out your welcome anywhere. In the end the world reckoned
your cost, and unless you were prepared to make some sort of
return for its bounty, the cold shoulder came to be your portion
instead of the warm handclasp.
"Hannibal has found friends among people of the first importance.
I have made it my business to inquire into their standing, and I
find that young lady is heiress to a cool half million.
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