Well protected from the weather Linda and her escort drove off hidden behind the oilcloth curtains on which the rain pattered steadily. The lights of the buggy sent long beams over the wet shell road, the air had a mingled odor of salt marsh and moist, fallen autumn leaves. From the clouds rolling off overhead, once in a while rumbled muffled peals of thunder. Berk's horse responded to his master's slightest word, and on a worse night and over worse roads could be depended upon, so Berkley assured his companion.
"So you've been to see the old judge," said the young man by way of beginning conversation. "Isn't he a fine old fellow?"
"He is the dearest old man I ever saw," returned Linda enthusiastically. "He has such a beautiful head, and if one wanted to meet the very pattern of an old time courtly gentleman he would have to go no further than Judge Goldsborough."
"I quite agree with you, and I wish I could ever hope to become anything like him, but nature has not endowed me with his fine presence nor with his brains."
"But you can hope to be J. S. D., you know."
"I don't know. The some day seems a very far cry, just now." He was silent a moment before he asked: "What did the judge have to say to you, Linda?"
"Miss Ri asked him about the Talbot estates and he appeared quite sure that there could be no complications as regards Talbot's Angles, at least. He said he had some old papers which might give him some points about the other places."
"He ought to know if anyone does," returned Berkley. "Suppose there should be complications, Linda, and suppose it should be Talbot's Angles that Jeffreys lays claim to, and that he proved a legitimate claim, what then?"
"I'd not be much worse off than I am now."
"Oh, yes, you would. There is the chance of your sister-in-law marrying again."
"Which I don't think she is liable to do. I don't know that I would mind Mr. Jeffreys' having it any more than I do that Grace should. He, at least, is of the Talbot blood."
"There is something in that. I wish it were all yours; I can't bear the idea of your wearing yourself out teaching, Linda." The words came with caressing concern.
"I am more fortunate than most. Think of my having a home with Miss Ri, and among my own people. I suppose it actually isn't so much that the teaching is difficult as that I am so constituted that I can't really love it. It is a great thing to make one's living in the way one likes best; that seems to me to be half the battle."