The Opened Shutters.

by Clara Louise Burnham.

CHAPTER I

JUDGE TRENT

Judge Trent's chair was tipped back at a comfortable angle for the accommodation of his gaitered feet, which rested against the steam radiator in his private office. There had been a second desk introduced into this sanctum within the last month, and the att.i.tude of the young man seated at it indicated but a brief suspension of business as he looked up to greet his employer.

The judge had just come in out of the cold and wet, and did not remove his silk hat as he seated himself to dry his shoes. He appeared always reluctant to remove that hat. Spotlessly clean as were always the habiliments that clothed his attenuated form, no one could remember having seen the judge's hat smoothly brushed; and although in the course of thirty years it is unlikely that he never became possessed of a new one, even the closest observer, and that was Martha Lacey, could not be certain of the transition period, probably owing to the lingering attachment with which the judge returned spasmodically to the headgear which had accommodated itself to his b.u.mps, and which he was heroically endeavoring to discard.

This very morning Miss Lacey in pa.s.sing her old friend on the street had been annoyed by the unusually rough condition of the hat he lifted.

A few steps further on she happened to encounter the judge's housekeeper, her market basket on her arm. Old Hannah's wrinkled countenance did not grow less grim as Miss Lacey greeted her, but that lady, nothing daunted, stopped to speak, her countenance alert and her bright gaze shining through her eyegla.s.ses.

"I just met Judge Trent, Hannah. Dear me, can't you brush that hat of his a little? It looks for all the world like a black cat that has just caught sight of a mastiff."

"I guess the judge knows how he wants his own hat," returned Hannah, her mouth working disapprovingly.

"But he doesn't realize how it looks. Some one asked me the other day if I supposed Judge Trent slept in his hat."

"And I s'pose you told 'em you didn't know," returned the old woman sourly. "He's got a right to sleep in it if he wants to," and she moved on while Miss Lacey looked after her for a moment, her lips set in a tight line.

"Insolent!" she exclaimed. "All is I know he wouldn't do it if _I'd_ married him," she added mentally, resuming her walk. Martha Lacey's sense of humor was not keen, but suddenly the mental picture of Judge Trent's shrewd, thin countenance, as it might appear in pillowed slumber surmounted by the high hat, overwhelmed her and she laughed silently. Then she frowned with reddening cheeks. "Hannah's impertinent," she murmured.

Judge Trent had read something of disapproval in Miss Lacey's glance as she greeted him a few minutes ago, and he thought of her now as he sat tilted back, his thumbs hooked easily in his arm holes, while he watched the glistening dampness dry from his shoes.

"Martha probably disapproved because I didn't have on my rubbers," he thought, an inward jerk acknowledging the humor of the situation. He had not spoken often with Martha Lacey for many a year. Twenty-five springs had rolled by now since he proposed to her. She had hesitated for a week or so, and then, some difference arising between them, she had refused him. He had led a busy life since then, absorbed in his profession of the law, and had won more than local fame. When recently he decided to take some one into his office and, as he put it, ease up on himself, John Dunham, Harvard graduate, recently admitted to the bar, thought himself a lucky man to get the position even though it exchanged Boston for life in a neighboring rural city.

"Plenty of trains for Boston every day," Judge Trent had said when the young fellow arrived. "If either one of us doesn't like the arrangement you can take one any hour, and no harm done."

That was less than a month ago, but already Calvin Trent had changed his mind. Should he lose young Dunham, he would regret it.

He regarded John now as the clean-shaven profile bent over a lengthy doc.u.ment. The judge had the small man's admiration for the stature and build of his a.s.sistant. He liked the sunshine of his smile, the steady gaze of his eyes. The young man's personality had impressed him from the first; but it was after the judge had proved the temper of his mind and quickness of his perception that he allowed these physical advantages to take their place as valuable a.s.sets.

"The boy's well born, and well raised," he said to himself. "I suppose he's some kind of a fool, he's too young not to be; but there's no sign of it yet."

It was very pleasant not to have to hurry to the office in the morning, and not to be obliged to furnish all the brains that were supposed to be accessible in this home of the law.

After a few minutes' silence Judge Trent looked up again from his steaming shoes.

"Ever been in love, Dunham?" he asked suddenly.

The young lawyer raised his eyes, with evident effort to bring his attention from the subject in hand, and regarded the quaint face and figure of his employer.

The vagueness of his stare caused the judge to stir and cough with some embarra.s.sment.

"Oh, no matter, of course. I just happened to think of it. When I was your age I had it bad: thought if I couldn't have that one girl life wouldn't be worth living." The speaker's foot slipped on the radiator, and he readjusted his chair.

"Just happened to meet her out there a minute ago;" he jerked the tall hat in the direction of the street.

"That must have been rather startling." Dunham had by this time collected his ideas.

"Oh, no. We've both always lived here; she's kept tab on me ever since; kind of puts the burden of proof on me to show that I can get along without her, if you understand."

"And you've shown her, eh?"

"'M, pretty so-so."

"You've never married, I believe?"

John did not have to a.s.sume an interest. This spare little man was small only in physique. He was an object of interest to any and every ambitious young lawyer.

"No, never did." Judge Trent shook his head, and rocked his tilted chair gently. "I might count up the number of kitchen fires I've escaped building on cold winter mornings; the number of nocturnal rambles I've escaped taking with shrieking infants doubled up with the colic--and then there are my books! What would have become of my books!

My fair one was the pizen-neat kind. She would have dusted them and driven me to drink!"

Dunham smiled. "And yet those are scarcely facts with which you can rea.s.sure her," he remarked.

Judge Trent caught the younger man's eye with a sympathetic twinkle.

"Precisely; and the sad consequence is that she has never been entirely rea.s.sured. Her name's against her, poor girl--Martha. Careful about many things."

"Then you had no successor?"

"No, and affairs piled up. I had too much to attend to to renew the attack. I didn't have time to smooth down her ruffled feathers, so--the result is that we've each flocked alone. Just as well, just as well,"

continued the speaker, musingly. "What I was thinking of just now was how many different lives we seem to live in one; how our tastes change; and at best how few illusions are left to lawyers regarding marriage."

"In other words, you're a confirmed old bachelor. What was it you asked me a minute ago--if I were in love?"

"Yes, or if you had been."

"Have been dozens of times,--am not," returned Dunham, with the smile that his employer liked.

"Just so, just so," the latter answered quickly. "We change. Read First Corinthians, seventh chapter, and if you take Paul's advice and don't pa.s.s the Rubicon, then you 'll be free to change as often as you please."

Dunham looked up again. "Are you a Bible student, Judge Trent?"

"Student of everything," returned the lawyer, with a short wave of his thin hand.

"All books except woman's looks, eh?" answered Dunham, returning to his papers.

"I said I had no successors," remarked the judge, regarding his gaiters musingly. "I'm not at all sure of that. Miss--Martha was a very attractive woman. My impression is that in any case she preferred to concentrate all her faculties upon watching to see that I didn't get into mischief."

"That's faithfulness, I'm sure," returned Dunham. "The necessity for building those kitchen fires wouldn't exist now," he added suggestively.

"Young man, no levity," returned the judge.

There was silence for a few minutes, broken only by the turning of the crisp papers as Dunham continued his researches. At last the telephone bell rang and Dunham answered it. As he hung up the receiver Judge Trent spoke:--