and never will be. His father was a very likely man, and so is his mother, and his older brothers are very likely men, but he is not worth a cuss."

"Uncle Josh is thinking about Bart's sketch of him, clawing old Nore
Morton's face," said Uncle Jonah.

"I did not like that; I did not like it at all. It made me look like hell amazingly," said the old man, much moved.

"You had good reason for not liking it," rejoined Uncle Jonah, "for it was exactly like you."

"Dr. Lyman, what do you think of this young man? He was with you, wa'n't he, studyin' something or other?" asked Uncle Josh; "don't you agree with me?"

"I don't know," answered the Doctor, "I am out of all patience with him. He is quick and ready, and wants to try his hand at every new thing; and the moment he finds he can do it, he quits it. There is no stability to him. He studied botany a week, and Latin a month, and Euclid ten days."

"He hunts well, and fishes well—don't he?" asked another.

"They say he shoots well," said Uncle Josh, "but he will wander in the woods all day, and let game run off from under his eyes, amazingly! They said at the big hunt, in the woods, he opened the lines and let all the deer out. He isn't good for a thing—not a cussed thing."

"Isn't he as smart as his brother Henry?" asked Uncle Jonah.

"It is not a question of smartness," replied the Doctor. "He is too smart; but Henry has steadiness, and bottom, and purpose, and power, and will, and industry. But Bart, if you start him on a thing, runs away out of sight of you in an hour. The next you see of him he is off loafing about, quizzing somebody; and if you call his attention back to what you set him at, he laughs at you. I have given him up, utterly; though I mean to ask him to go a-fishing one of these nights."

"Exactly," said Uncle Jonah, "make him useful. But, Dr. Lyman and
Joshua Burnett, the boy has got the stuff in him—the stuff in him.
Why, he told you here, in fifteen minutes, more about the State of
Ohio than you both ever knew. You will see—"

"You will see, too, that he will not come to a darn," said Uncle Josh, regarding that as a sad doom indeed.

CHAPTER IV.

AT THE POST-OFFICE.

Barton found a more attractive group at the store. The post-office occupied a window and corner near the front of the large, old-fashioned, square store-room; and, as he entered the front door, he saw, in the back part of the room, a gay, laughing, warbling, giggling, chirping group of girls gathered about Julia Markham, as their natural centre. Barton was a little abashed; he might have moved up more cautiously, and reconnoitred, had he not been taken by surprise. There was no help for it. He deposited his letters and called for his mail, which gave him time to gather his forces in hand.

Now Barton was born to love and serve women in all places, and under all forms and circumstances. His was not a light, silly, vapid, complimentary devotion, but deep in his nature, through and through, he reverenced woman as something sacred and high, and above the vulgar nature of men; this reformed his mind, and inspired his manners; and, while he was generally disliked by men, he was favorably regarded by women. It was not in woman's nature to think ill of a youth who was always so modestly respectful, and anxious to please and oblige; and no man thus constituted was ever awkward or long embarrassed in woman's presence. She always gets from him, if not his best, what is proper. If he can lose self-consciousness, and receive the full inspiration of her presence, he will soon be at his ease, if not graceful.

The last thing absolutely that ever could occur to Barton, and it never had as yet, was the possibility of his being an object of interest personally to a woman, or to women. He was modest—almost to bashfulness; but as he never presumed, he was never snubbed; and now, on this summer afternoon, he had came upon a group of seven or eight of the most attractive girls of the neighborhood, accompanied by one or two strangers. There was Julia, never so lovely before, with a warm color on her cheek, and a liquid light in her dark eyes, in whose presence all other girls were commonplace; and her friends Nell Roberts and Kate Fisher, Lizzie Mun and Pearlie Burnett, and several others. The young man was seen and recognized, and had to advance. Think of walking thirty feet alone in the faces of seven or eight beautiful girls, and at the same time be easy and graceful! It is funny, what a hush the presence of one young man will bring over a laughing, romping cluster of young women. At his entrance, their girlish clamor sunk to a liquid murmur; and, when he approached, they were nearly silent, all but Julia and a stylish blonde, whom Barton had never seen before. They were gathered around a cloud and tangle of women's mysterious fabrics, whose names are as unknown to men as their uses. Most of the young girls suspended their examinations and rippling comments, and, with a little heightened color, awaited the approach of the enemy. He came on, and gracefully bowed to each, was permitted to take the hands of two or three, and greeted with a little chorus of—"You have come back!" "Where have you been?" "How do you do?" Julia greeted him with her eyes, as he entered, with a sweet woman's way, that thrilled him, and which enabled him to approach her so well. She had remained examining a bit of goods, as if unaware of his immediate presence for a moment, and he had been introduced to the strange lady by Kate Fisher as her cousin, Miss Walters, from Pittsburgh.

Then Julia turned to him, and, with a charming manner, asked: "Mr. Ridgeley"—she had not called him Bart, or Barton, since her return from Boston—"Mr. Ridgeley, what do the girls mean? Have you really been away?"

"Have I really been away? And if I really have, am I to be permitted to take your hand, and asked how I really do? as if you really cared?"

"Really," was her answer, "you see we have just received our fall fashions, and it is not the fall style this year to give and take hands after an absence."

"A-h! how popular that will be with poor masculines! Is that to be worn by all of you?"

"I don't know," said Kate; "it is not fall with some of us yet."

"Thank you! and may I ask Miss Markham if it was the spring and summer style not to say good-bye at a parting?"

The tone was gay, but there was something more in it, and the girl replied: "That depends upon the lady, I presume; both styles may be varied at her pleasure."

"Ah, I think I understand! You are kind to explain."

"Mr. Barton," said Lizzie, "Flora and I here cannot determine about our colors"—holding up some gay ribbons—"and the rest can't help us out. What do you think of them?"

"That they are brilliant," answered Barton, looking both steadily and innocently in the faces, in a way that deepened their hues.

"Oh, no! these ribbons?" exclaimed the blushing girl, thrusting them towards his eyes.

"Indeed I am color blind, though not wholly blind to color." And a little ripple of laughter ran over the bright group, and then they all laughed again.

Can any one tell why a young girl laughs, save that she is happy and joyous? If she does or says anything, she laughs, and if she don't, she laughs, and her companions laugh because she does, and then they all laugh, and then laugh again because they laughed before, and then they look at each other and laugh again; thus they did now, and Barton could no more tell what they were laughing at