Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1902-02-27
JUDGE AND JURY.


able and remarkabley brave" said the
girl who thought she knew life.
Il believe they are absolutely hap
py and have great self-coltrol,' said
the girl who thought sne did not
Il believe they are All extremely
ordinary couple who at the bottom
of their hearts do love each other
and who yet manage to nave some
very bad days-meaning rows-like
everybody else," said tie girl who
really did.
They were speaking of Mr.. and Mrs.
Fanshaw, known among their ac-
quaintances as the Judge and Jury"
Nobody quite knew why they were
so called-or, rather. nobody remem-
bered. The name had originally been
chance remark made by witty
young barrister, who had an oddly
clever trick of knocking off his ac-
quaintances in some little catch
phrase like this one of Judge and
Jury
"Shes the jury, you know-really
settles everything; but he imagines it
all his own doing, and, in any case. he
gets the credit of it, ye know"
And they had been so called ever
since The judge dearly loved his
wife, but he never told her so. In
his own mind he had agreed that the
fact of his having chosen ner from a
world of girls-and in his youth the
Judge had been much sought after
OF having told her, and that more than
or ce during his brief engagement, he
did love her-and finally having made
, Fer his wife-all this was sufficient.
What necessity for more? So he
lived quietly, undemonstrative on,
ard-in secret his wife was miserable.
She was rather a passionate and
also, in some ways, very proud
woman But she had no children,
and above all was she a woman to
whom not only the mere fact of
loving word or little caress was an
absolute pleasure but, moreover, she
pined-if that word or caress were
hers-that all her world should see
and hear it. 1t was species of uncon-
scious conceit very common, did one
only know it, to most women. Often
did she tell her friends how the judge
would almost ignore ner ir front of
people, but when he got her alone!
Indeed, she had laid some quite pas
sionate love scene at the judges door.
Her younger friends looked at her
husband with great wonder-at her
self with envy and the jury, noting
this, was then happy. She would
move about with a smile On her lips,
cheating herself almost into the be-
lief that the Judge really had kissed
her with tears in his eyes after he
had been away for two iays-when,
in very truth, the two on meeting
had but shaken hands. For though
the Judge did occasionally. and on
such occasions, embrace his wife. If
they met, as they had then done. be-
fore the servants he always treated
her in this stranger fashion.
There was one particle of truth in
Mrs. Fanshaw's romances.
AS have before said. her young
friends envied her contemporaries
smiled and the old people softly said
"Poor thing"
And the Judge and Jury went their
ways. She being a clever woman,
ruled him in all but the one point
which would have made her happy.
There came, one very hot summer,
TO the town this couple lived in that
dread disease-typhoid fever
And one of the earliest to take it
was Mrs. Fanshaw.
At first the doctor thought it would
be a slight attack. The Jury herself
was not anxious, and the Judge, as
usual. said nothing.
"Dick," said she to him, when she
bad been i'll few days. "if l were
going to die and you knew it, what
would you do?"
You are not going to die" said
the Judge. dryly
But if l were. Dick?" petulantly
The Jury felt ill.
Il cannot imagine, my dear, such an
unhappy state of things. Don't you
think you had better go to sleep for
a little?"
'Dick, would you bid me goodbye
and say you loved me?" the invalid
asked.
She was worse than either Of them
knew, and fever gave her a courage
she would not otherwise have pos
sessed.
81 think-my dear" the Judge re-
peated, rising from his chair prepar-
atory to leaving the room-"y Oh had
better"
Mrs. Fanshaw caught hold of her
husbands hand as he turned away.
ANY way, Dick" she said, in a
shriller key than her T,ont was to
speak in, even if I'm not going to
die-and, of course I'm not" as the
Judge made an impatient gesture)-
ut wouldn't hurt you to say you
loved me now. Dick, do-just once"
And she pulled at his cool hand and