The contest against his wife's homestead did not, of course alter his plans in any way. He would continue along the lines he had started. But there were other things that came to annoy him at the same time. Chiefly among these was his wife's father. Always there had to be some ado when it came to him. He had reared his daughter, as before intimated, to consider him of the world's greatest men—especially the Negro race's, and to avoid friction, Baptiste came gradually to see that he would almost have to be beholden unto this creature in whom he was positively not very deeply interested.

N. Justine McCarthy's accomplishments were of a nature which Baptiste would rather have avoided. The fact that he had been a Presiding Elder in one of the leading denominations of Negro churches out of which he managed to filch about a thousand a year, was in a measure foreign to his son-in-law. And the Reverend was not an informed or practical man.

The truth was that all the pretensions made to the Elder, flattering him into feeling he was a great man, Jean Baptiste came to regard as a deliberate fawning to flatter an extreme vanity. Far from being even practical, N.J. McCarthy was by disposition, environment and cultivation, narrow, impractical, hypocritical, envious and spiteful. As to how much he was so, not even did Jean Baptiste fully realize at the time, but came to learn later from experience.

He was expected in early October. The hearing of the contest was to convene a few days later, so as a greeting to his Majesty, he was to be given an opportunity to see Orlean on the stand and mercilessly grilled by non-sentimental lawyers. Baptiste was appreciative of what might result, and wished the visit could have been deferred for a while.

Another source of irritation continually, was Ethel's letters, and his wife's nervousness over the child that was to come. For the first time in her life she had been disobedient. Secretly she had, after many misgivings, fears and indecisions, brewed a tea from the weed as per Ethel's prescription—but in vain! Later, the guilt, the never-to-be-forgotten guilt; the unborn child that refused the poison, seemed to haunt her. And she could not tell her husband. But this was not all. Ethel's letters continued to come, filled with the same advice; the same suggestions; the same condemnation of motherhood—and she was compelled to keep it all a hopeless secret from the man she had sworn to love and obey.

One thing was agreed upon, they decided not to inform the Elder—at least, in so far as Orlean was concerned, she left it to Jean, and Jean, with as many troubles as he cared for and more, to deal with, was becoming perceptibly irritant. So with this state of affairs prevailing, the Reverend finally arrived for his long anticipated visit.