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“Why, how could you?” inquired Emmy Lou. “We weren’t even engaged then. Who could have circulated such a report about us?”

“The very first time I seen you two young folks walkin’ up Franklin Street together you both were circulatin’ it,” he said, chuckling again. “You may not ‘a’ knowed it, but you were. I may be gittin’ old, but my eyesight ain’t entirely failed up on me yit–I could read the signs when I was still half a block away frum you. It was right after that that I started my own little private investigation. So you see I was qualified to reasshore Aunt Sharley. I told her all the available information on the subject proved the young gentleman in question was not only a mighty clever, up-standin’, manly young feller, but that where he hailed from he belonged to the quality folks, which really was the p’int she seemed most anxious about. That’s whut I told her, and I was monstrous glad to be able to tell her. A stranger might have thought it was pure impudence on her part, but of course we both know, you and me, whut was in the back part of her old kinky head. And when I’d got done tellin’ her she went down the street from here with her head throwed away back, singin’ till you could ‘a’ heard her half a mile off, I reckin.”

“I never guessed it. She never told me she’d been to see you. And you didn’t tell me, either, when you came the other night to wish me joy, Judge.”

“I kind of figgered she wanted the matter treated confidential,” explained Judge Priest. “So I respected whut I took to be her wishes in the matter. But wasn’t it fur all the world jest like that old black woman?”

“Yes, it was just like her,” agreed Emmy Lou, her face shadowed with deepening distress. “And because it was just like her and because I know now better than ever before how much she really loves me, those things make it all the harder to tell you what I came here to tell you–make it all the harder for me to decide what I should do and to ask your advice before I do decide.”

“Oh, I reckin it can’t be so serious ez all that,” said Judge Priest comfortingly. “Betwixt us we oughter be able to find a way out of the difficulty, whutever it is. S’pose, honey, you start in at the beginnin’ and give me all the facts in the matter that’s worryin’ you.”

She started then and, though her voice broke several times, she kept on until she came to the end of her tragic little recital. To Emmy Lou it was very tragic indeed.

“So you see, Judge Priest, just how it is,” she stated at the conclusion. “From both sides I am catching the brunt of the whole thing. Aunt Sharley won’t budge an inch from the attitude she’s taken, and neither will Harvey budge an inch. He says she must go; she tells me every day she won’t go. This has been going on for a week now and I’m almost distracted. At what should be the happiest time in a girl’s life I’m being made terribly unhappy. Why, it breaks my heart every time I look at her. I know how much we owe her–I know I can never hope to repay her for all she has done for me and my sister.

“But oh, Judge, I do want to be the right kind of wife to Harvey. All my life long I mean to obey him and to look up to him; I don’t want to begin now by disobeying him–by going counter to his wishes. And I can understand his position too. To him she’s just an unreasonable, meddlesome, officious, contrary old negro woman who would insist on running the household of which he should be the head. She would too.