“Dis yere fambly ain’ nevah ready to eat. Dey allers has sumpin else dey gotta do,” grumbled Serena as she moved out upon the front porch of the Dale home.

Virginia stood upon the greensward listening to the call of a song sparrow in the tree above her head. The notes of the bird rang clear upon the morning air in all of their sweetness, until overwhelmed in competition with a jazz melody whistled by Ike as he moved about dragging a serpent-like length of hose behind him.

“Cum in to you’ breakfus, chil’,” commanded Serena.

“In a moment. Isn’t it a beautiful day for the concert?”

Although Virginia’s tardiness was yet uppermost in her mind, Serena deigned to examine the heavens above and the earth beneath with a critical eye which proposed to allow no fault to escape it. Then she made answer in a cryptic reply, “You ain’ said nothin’ chil’, you ain’ said nothin’ a tall.”

“Virginia,” said Obadiah, when they met at the breakfast table, “Mr. Wilkins was here again yesterday afternoon and you were not at home.”The girl laughed. “I know it, Daddy,” she confessed, as she poured a generous measure of thick cream over her dish of sliced peaches. The charge of absenteeism made against her did not appear to be affecting her appetite as she began to eat.

“I warned you that he was coming,” Obadiah continued, impressively.

“Yes, Daddy.” The girl was enjoying her peaches and cream. “After you told me about it I waited for him and he didn’t come,” she explained virtuously. “The next afternoon, I had to go out and–of course, he had to come. The afternoon after that, I waited at home expecting Mr. Wilkins and he never came near. Yesterday I had to go out–and he had to come.” She laughed gaily. “We have been playing a game of hide and seek. Mr. Wilkins has been it and hasn’t caught me yet.”

“It’s been an expensive game for me,” protested Obadiah. “I pay Mr. Wilkins a large salary for his time and services and I can use them to better advantage than in making calls upon you.”

“That’s an ungallant speech. I am filled with shame for my own father.” She shook her head sadly in token of her disgrace. “If Mr. Wilkins wants to see me, why doesn’t he arrange to come when I am home?” she argued stoutly.

Obadiah became stern. “You should have remained home for Mr. Wilkins. You are out a great deal, anyway.”

A look of mock horror came into Virginia’s face. “Would you have me sit alone in this big house, waiting with folded arms for Mr. Wilkins?” she giggled.Even Obadiah relented before this sorrowful picture. “Who said anything about folded arms,” he demanded shortly, “or about sitting alone, either? You are out some place in that machine every day. It won’t hurt you to remain at home until Mr. Wilkins has seen you. My affairs are of more importance than yours.”

Virginia looked at him with great solemnity. “You want to be cross at me, Daddy, and you can’t make yourself,” she laughed. “These peaches and cream are protecting me. If they didn’t taste so good to you, I would get a scolding. I don’t deserve it, though, because, after all, my affairs are always your affairs. Ike says that the machine runs better if it is used every day. I keep it in splendid order for you.”

The efforts of his daughter did not appear to impress Obadiah.

She went on with an air of pride, “Lately, I have been busy on a surprise for you.” She assumed an air of dignity. “I am giving an entertainment to the old ladies of the Lucinda Home this afternoon. I planned it all by myself and I invite you to be present. There’ll be a concert by a brass band. Aren’t you surprised, Daddy?”

Obadiah was surprised. Without reference to natural perplexity as to why festivities for the benefit of the old ladies should be a matter of astonishment to him, there were ample grounds for amazement in the knowledge that his youthful daughter had assumed management of a production involving a brass band. It was as if she had announced her connection with a circus for the aged.“Where did you get the band?” demanded Obadiah, in the tone of an anxious parent whose infant has returned bearing personal property suspected of belonging to a neighbor.

“Colonel Ryan loaned it to me. He is coming, too. Won’t you come, Daddy dear, please?” There was a wistful look in the girl’s face. “It’s going to be lovely.”

Obadiah was uncomfortable. “I can’t come today,” he replied, finally.

“Oh Daddy–” her disappointment showed in every note of her voice–“I have counted so much on having you. I would be so proud of you.” She glanced imploringly at him.

“I’m going out of town,” he said.

“Can’t you put it off?”

“No, Virginia, I have made my plans to go today. I can’t let anything interfere with business arrangements. They mean dollars and cents.”

“All right, Daddy,” she surrendered with a sad little sigh and tried to cheer herself. “Some day when I have something else you’ll plan to come, won’t you, dear?”

He was interested in his newspaper now. “Perhaps,” he finally answered absently without looking up.

For a time they ate in silence. “The afternoon frightens me, Daddy,” she told him with a worried air. “It’s a big responsibility. What if it should be a failure?”

He crushed his paper down by his plate and snapped, “You got into the thing of your own accord. It’s up to you to see it through. To make a success of it–a Dale success. You can do it.”

His assurance braced the girl. “I’ll make a go of it, Daddy,” she promised, and then, “It’s wrong for me to expect Mr. Wilkins to run after me. I will go to his office this morning and see him.”

He gave her a look of approval. “That’s business,” he agreed.

She hovered about him after they rose from the table. “Could I ask Mr. Wilkins to come to my concert, Daddy?” There was an appealing look in the big blue eyes. “I don’t want it to seem as if I have no friends.”

He gave her an uneasy glance and there was almost a note of regret in his voice when he answered, “I am sorry that I can’t come. Certainly, you may ask Mr. Wilkins. Tell him that I want him to go. Ask any one you like.” Yet in spite of these concessions his conscience disturbed him. “How will you meet the expenses of the entertainment,” he inquired.

“They won’t be much. Serena had the things which I needed charged at the store.”

Obadiah appeared about to protest but changed his mind.

“I can pay for anything else I need out of my allowance,” she went on.

An unusual wave of generosity engulfed Obadiah, due, no doubt, to pricks of his unquiet conscience. “Don’t do that,” he objected. “Send the bills to me.”

A delighted Virginia lifted up her voice, joyously, “How perfectly grand! I’ll order ice cream for everybody.”Pain rested upon Obadiah’s countenance, due, no doubt, rather to a twinge of indigestion at the mention of a large quantity of ice cream during the breakfast hour than to regret at the result of his unusual liberality. He sought relief in reproving Ike sternly, ere departing for his office.

Virginia spent a busy morning. She telephoned to Colonel Ryan, visited Mrs. Henderson and conferred at length with Mrs. Smith, the matron at the Lucinda Home, regarding the approaching festivities.

Later, she repaired to the establishment of Mr. Vivian, glittering brilliantly in the morning sun and graced even at this early hour by thirsty members of South Ridgefield’s younger set.

Her deliberations with the genial proprietor were prolonged. Complex factors hindered the meeting of minds regarded as essential to the contractual relationship of commerce. Mr. Vivian’s knowledge of the law of probabilities as applied to the consumption of ice cream and cake by infants, by adults, or by infants and adults together, was as deep as the information of an insurance actuary on the mortality of fellow men. But specialists gain their reputation through years of toil, and they object to risking it on the uncertain. To Mr. Vivian the capacity of old ladies and aged soldiers for delicate confections was an unknown factor. He had no digest of leading cases to consult, no vital statistics to inspect, no medical journals to study. He was venturing into unexplored territory. Without premises he was asked to deduct a conclusion. Mr. Vivian was reduced to an unscientific guess.

Yet, if necessary, guesses can be made. So it came to pass that Mr. Vivian bowed the manufacturer’s daughter from his emporium, and, with the sweet smell of his wares in his nostrils, raised eyes of loving kindness from the profitable order in his hand, due account thereof to be rendered unto Obadiah for payment, and gazed after her in respectful admiration.

Shortly after this, the judicial solemnity of the chamber of Hezekiah Wilkins, Attorney at Law, situate and being, opposite the suite of Obadiah, was disturbed by a timid knock. It failed to attract Hezekiah’s attention. This was strange. The room was not unusually large. Also, its size was diminished by cases of reports, digests and encyclopedias covering the walls, except where they were pierced by the windows and door or broken by the fireplace and its broad chimney face. Upon this hung a picture of the Supreme Court and on the mantel below stood a bust of John Marshall, the stern eyes of which viewed the polished back of Hezekiah’s head as he sat at his desk.

It is possible that the lawyer was preoccupied through profound consideration of some abstract point of law. Before him lay an open court report and his desk was littered with documents. His head was bowed forward, his hands clasped over his abdomen and his eyes closed.

“Tap–tap,” sounded again at the door. Hezekiah brushed at his face as if to shoo a disturbing fly. Yet, so deep were his meditations that he failed to note the interruption.

“Knock–knock–bang.” The noise swelled to a well-defined blow of sufficient authority to recall the greatest mental concentration from the most tortuous legal labyrinth of the most learned court in the world.

Hezekiah jumped. He raised his head with a jerk and his eyes opened. One unacquainted with the abysmal excogitations of judicial mentalities might describe them as having a startled look. He rubbed them with his fists, stroked his smooth shaven cheeks and replaced his glasses on his nose. Having by such simple expedients withdrawn his mind from the fathomless depths of legal lore into which it seemingly had been plunged, he shouted, “Come in.”

Virginia entered.

Hezekiah, recognizing the daughter of his employer, sprang to his feet, greeting her, “I am honored, indeed, Miss Dale.”

“Mr. Wilkins, my father says that I have done wrong in allowing you to come to our house twice and not find me at home.” She smiled sweetly at him as she held out her hand to him. “I am sorry. I thought that my best apology would be to save you another trip by coming to see you.”

“You are very considerate, Miss Dale,” he responded, as he offered her his visitor’s chair.

She sat down filled with great curiosity as to his business with her.

He did not approach it directly. “We are having beautiful weather, Miss Dale. Being given to out of door pursuits and pastimes–athletic, as it were–you must find it very agreeable.”

“I do enjoy these beautiful spring days. I like to be out of doors, too. But I am not what they call an athletic girl, Mr. Wilkins.”

“I plead guilty to an inaccuracy of nomenclature,” Hezekiah responded with great solemnity, removing his glasses and flourishing them.

“What did you say, Mr. Wilkins?” asked Virginia in smiling bewilderment.

His eyes began to twinkle and in spite of his serious face she caught his mood and they burst into a peal of laughter.

“Miss Dale–” he began.

She interrupted him. “Call me Virginia as you always have done, Mr. Wilkins,” she urged. “Please do.”

“It will be easier,” he admitted, and then for a moment he studied her face thoughtfully. “You are looking more like your mother, every day, Virginia. She was a beautiful woman–a very beautiful woman,” he continued dreamily. “As good, too, as she was beautiful. It seems to me, now, that her life was given up to doing kindnesses to others. I have always been proud that your mother accepted me as one of her friends.”

His words awakened eager interest in the girl. “Tell me about her, please, Mr. Wilkins,” she begged, as he paused.

He smiled gently into the wistful eyes of blue, as happy remembrances of the past returned to him. “Your mother came into our lives as a gentle zephyr from her own beautiful Southland. With her came memories of bright sunshine, growing flowers and perfumed air. These things radiated from her–a part of her life. Happiness and joy were ever her constant companions and the gifts she would shower.”

Virginia’s eyes were big with the tender longings of her heart. “My mother tried to make every one else happy, didn’t she?”

The countenance of Hezekiah softened and his voice was tempered by gentle memories as he said, “If she tried to do that, she succeeded. Every one who knew your mother was the happier for it.”

“Oh–what a beautiful thing to say about her, Mr. Wilkins,” she whispered.

After a few moments of silence, Hezekiah resolutely thrust aside the reveries into which he and his visitor had plunged. “Ahem,” he coughed and then he polished his scalp so vigorously that it became suffused with a purplish tinge. “Virginia,” he inquired sternly, “are you acquainted with one Joseph Tolliver Curtis?”

For an instant Virginia was unable to identify Joe under his formal appellation. “Yes, he is the man at the hospital who was hurt by our machine,” she answered finally.

“You have visited him?”

She nodded.

He removed his glasses and tapped his teeth. “Did you ever discuss with the said Joseph Tolliver Curtis the accident heretofore referred to?”

“What did you say, Mr. Wilkins?” worried Virginia.

“Will you please state,” demanded Hezekiah absently, “whether at any time or any place you discussed the subject matter of this action with the plaintiff.”

“Mr. Wilkins, what are you talking about?” Virginia cried in dismay.Hezekiah came out of his preoccupation. “I beg your pardon,” he said hastily. “I asked if you ever talked over the accident with Curtis.”

“Is that the question you asked me, Mr. Wilkins?”

“Honest,” he chuckled.

“Oh, I can answer that easily. I talked it all over with him.”

“Have you objection to advising me of the substance–” Hezekiah stopped and restated his question–“Will you tell what you said, Virginia?”

“Certainly, I told Mr. Curtis that I was to blame for the accident and he said it was his own fault.”

The lawyer was surprised. “Did he admit negligence?”

Virginia deemed this question to imply danger to Joe and she remembered her promise. “I am not at liberty to say, Mr. Wilkins,” she answered stoutly. “I can’t discuss Mr. Curtis’s part in the accident.”

For a moment Hezekiah eyed the girl thoughtfully. He arose and took a turn up and down the room while his eyes danced with mischief. He reached a decision which changed his line of questioning when he reseated himself. “Virginia, do you think that you were to blame for that accident?” he asked the girl.

“I know that I was.”

“If you were a witness in court, would you testify that the accident was your fault?”

“I would admit my blame anywhere and any place, Mr. Wilkins.”

“Did Mr. Curtis say anything to you about bringing a suit for damages against your father?”

“No, he wouldn’t do that, I’m sure.”“Why are you sure?”

“I told him that I believed my father should pay him damages.”

“What did he say to that?” asked Hezekiah with interest.

“He said that he wouldn’t take money from my father.”

“Was he angry, Virginia?”

“Oh, no indeed.” She hesitated for a moment. “He seemed tired and worn out and so I left him.”

“Well, Virginia, what would you say if I told you that I tried to reach an agreement with Mr. Curtis the other day and he refused to accept anything in settlement?”

“I say that my father is just the dearest and noblest man that ever lived. He sent you to do that, didn’t he, Mr. Wilkins, and never said a word about it to me? Isn’t that just like Daddy?”

Hezekiah smiled but said no word. Possibly he remembered the amount of the check. Professional confidences make lawyers cynical. He drummed a spirited march upon his desk with his fingers and took no other part in the acclaim of Obadiah.

“Mr. Wilkins,” worried Virginia, “do you suppose that you could have hurt Mr. Curtis’s feelings?”

“I did not intend to. Men are never as gentle as women, though.” Hezekiah was playing a foxy game. “A man is rougher. It is easy for him to hurt the feelings of a sensitive person without having the slightest intention of doing so.”

“This request appeared to require deep thought”