river, and tramps through the woods. We can't outgrow every thing. And there'll be summers and summers."

"Good-by."

The gate-latch clicked: Jack walked rapidly down the street, whistling "Kathleen Mavourneen" unconsciously. Did he dream the simple faith of boyhood had reached its culmination, and was henceforth to wane?

"Dear old Jack," thought Fred: "I don't know as he is quite Launcelot, though I used to think so at first. But there was Sir Gawain and Sir Bedevere and a host of worthies, and if he only would he could come up to the highest. What makes him so obstinate and unambitious, I wonder? Are there any King Arthurs and loyal knights nowadays, or only common men and women?"

His sisters opened upon him with the fatal persistency of narrow feminine natures.

"You may say what you like about Jack Darcy," he flung out angrily, "but you'll never make me give him up,—never, never!"

"Do hush, children," interposed Mrs. Lawrence. "Fred, I hope you will learn to modulate your voice, and not shriek so."

Sylvie put on her hat to go home. As she passed Fred she said just above her breath,—

"You are right and brave. I wouldn't give up my friend because he was poor; and Jack is so nice!"

"Much she knows about it," thought Fred, with a true boyish disdain. Yet her approval of Jack was a virtue in his eyes.

CHAPTER II.

"Father!" exclaimed Jack a few days after this parting from his bosom friend, "I think I will go in the mill for a year or two, if there is any thing for me to do. Meanwhile my inspiration may come along."

"But what would you like best, Jack?"

"That's just the trouble," and the youthful brows knit in perplexity. "All things seem alike to me: I haven't any choice."

Mr. Darcy drew a long breath that was almost a sigh. If Jack only would evince some preference!

However, a place was found as under-bookkeeper. It was desperately tiresome to Jack to sit perched on a high stool all day; and after three months of it he begged to be put at something else.

At this period we had gone through our costly civil war; and, instead of being exhausted as friends and enemies predicted, the machinery of business appeared to have been set in motion with a new and overwhelming impetus. Every thing was wanted; everybody had work or money; and the most useless commodity found a purchaser: as if our anguish had crazed us, and we went into a delirium of mental opium, and dreamed wild, exhilarating dreams which we mistook for reality.

Yerbury had been a slow, solid, conservative town. Property was low, taxes light and easily paid, a balance on hand in the treasury to commence the new year, and very little pauperism in the town. Yerbury officials utilized their inefficient population, and their county jail was not made a palace of luxury. The old-fashioned element in the place held crime as the result of sin instead of occult disease,—a thing to be punished, rather than petted. It had good railroad connections, plenty of water, with one navigable stream, and a variety of industries. Iron, shoes, hats, paper, and clothing were manufactured to a considerable extent, to say nothing of many smaller branches. Hope Mills was the largest, the focus of the town, and had the prestige of being handed down through three generations, though never as extensive as now.

Toward the west there was a succession of pretty hills that lay in the broad sunshine, making you think somehow of Spanish slopes, covered with vineyards, olives, and luxuriant verdure. Over beyond, a wide, diversified country range, farms, woodland, hills and valleys, with a branch of the river winding through, called, rather unromantically, Little Creek.

On these slopes, the new part, dwelt the aristocracy. Streets wound around in picturesque fashion to make easy grades, and many old forest-trees were preserved by that means, giving the place an air of years, rather than yesterday and improvement. There were two pretty parks,—one devoted to Fourth-of-July orations from time immemorial; there were churches of every denomination; a boarding and day school for young ladies, the academy, some excellent district schools; a hall with library and reading-room; a bank; rows of attractive shops and stores; and, coming down in the scale of refinement, beer-saloons and concert-halls, kept generally up to a certain point of morality. There were so many laboring-men, and they must have something by way of entertainment.

It struck Jack with a curious wonder. These stolid faces and plodding steps were part of the human machines out of which wealth was being ground. They went to the beer-shops at night in their dirty clothes, smelling of grease and dye, drank beer, played a few games, and harangued each other, and went home maudlin or stupefied. Perhaps it was more comfortable than the slatternly wives and crying children. Did it need to be so? If you gave the workingman a helping hand, did he turn straightway into an unreasoning demagogue?

He was not likely to be tempted by such doings. His home had always been too clean and pleasant. He still kept up with the boys, and joined the lyceum club; but the intimate companionship of his life was gone.

Fred did not come home for Christmas. College-life was delightful,—would be just perfect if dear old Jack were there. The glowing letters kept alive his own secret dissatisfaction. But how explain it to one who would be sure to say, "Get out of it all, Jack: no one has any right to keep you in such a distasteful round, and thwart your life-plans." To be sure, he had no life-plans.

One raw, cold March day, Mr. Darcy went out to repair a roof that had leaked in the previous storm. He rarely minded wind or weather.

"I declare," he said that evening, dropping into his capacious armchair, "I feel as if I should never get warmed through. I do believe we shall have a tremendous snowstorm to take this chill out of the air. Jack, read the paper aloud, won't you?"

Jack complied. Local items, bits of State news, and the general progress of the country; the starvation of a nation at the antipodes, the discovery of a wonderful silver-mine, plans for new railroads,—how busy the world was! It stirred Jack's youthful blood.

"I'd like to be a railroad-president," said Jack suddenly.

His father stared, then laughed at the absurdity. "Why, you're only a boy, Jack," he replied.

"I know it. But the boy who means to be a railroad-president must begin somewhere. Or if I could own a silver-mine," he went on, with the boundless audacity of youth.

"Could you find use for the silver?" asked his father humorously.

Jack flushed, and lapsed into dreams. Grandmother opposite was nodding in her chair, her knitting still in her fingers. Jack left his vision for a moment, to calculate if the old chest upstairs was not nearly full of stockings. His mother sat sewing some trifle, and just raised her eyes with that longing, beseeching glance mothers so often give to their sons.

"If women only did not care so much for one," thought Jack, "or if there had been a great family of us. And still I can't see the wonderful difference between going to college, and going to seek your fortune. Does two or three hundred miles more matter when you are once away?"

The snow came on through the night. There being nothing urgent on hand, Mr. Darcy remained within; but Jack buffeted the storm gallantly. It would be worse than this out in the new countries where he meant to go some time.

The next day Mr. Darcy was out. There was a dull pain in his breast, going through to his back, and he coughed a little. It went on thus for