Any black coat and white shirt was sufficiently de rigueur for Indian
Spring. Mr. Ford added the superfluous elegance of a forgotten white
waistcoat. When he reached the sidewalk it was only nine o'clock, but
the windows of the Court-house were already flaring like a stranded
steamer on the barren bank where it had struck. On the way thither he
was once or twice tempted to change his mind, and hesitated even at the
very door. But the fear that his hesitation would be noticed by the
few loungers before it, and the fact that some of them were already
hesitating through bashfulness, determined him to enter.
The clerks' office and judges' chambers on the lower floor had been
invaded by wraps, shawls, and refreshments, but the dancing was
reserved for the upper floor or courtroom, still unfinished. Flags,
laurel-wreaths, and appropriate floral inscriptions hid its bare walls;
but the coat of arms of the State, already placed over the judges' dais
with its illimitable golden sunset, its triumphant goddess, and its
implacable grizzly, seemed figuratively to typify the occasion better
than the inscriptions.
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