at first against this remedy, he was now instinctively in favor of it.
He remembered his own power with a jury; his vanity and his chivalry
alike approved of this heroic method; he was bound by no prosaic
facts--he had his own theory of the case, which no mere evidence could
gainsay. In fact, Mrs. Hooker's admission that he was to "tell the story
in his own way" actually appeared to him an inspiration and a prophecy.
Perhaps there was something else, due possibly to the lady's wonderful
eyes, of which he had thought much. Yet it was not her simplicity that
affected him solely; on the contrary, it was her apparent intelligent
reading of the character of her recreant lover--and of his own! Of all
the Colonel's previous "light" or "serious" loves, none had ever before
flattered him in that way. And it was this, combined with the respect
which he had held for their professional relations, that precluded
his having a more familiar knowledge of his client, through serious
questioning or playful gallantry. I am not sure it was not part of the
charm to have a rustic femme incomprise as a client.
Nothing could exceed the respect with which he greeted her as she
entered his office the next day. He even affected not to notice that she
had put on her best clothes, and he made no doubt appeared as when
she had first attracted the mature yet faithless attentions of Deacon
Hotchkiss at church. A white virginal muslin was belted around her slim
figure by a blue ribbon, and her Leghorn hat was drawn around her oval
cheek by a bow of the same color. She had a Southern girl's narrow feet,
encased in white stockings and kid slippers, which were crossed primly
before her as she sat in a chair, supporting her arm by her faithful
parasol planted firmly on the floor. A faint odor of southernwood
exhaled from her, and, oddly enough, stirred the Colonel with a far-off
recollection of a pine-shaded Sunday-school on a Georgia hillside, and
of his first love, aged ten, in a short starched frock. Possibly it was
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