r, he carried his book to the orchard
and flung himself down beneath the trees. The judge had given him a
biography of Jefferson, and he had learned his hero's life with lips and
heart. The day that it was finished he put the volume under his arm and
went to the rector's house.

"I want to join the church," he said bluntly.

The rector, a kindly, middle-aged man, with a love for children, turned
to him in half-puzzled, half-sympathetic inquiry.

"You are young, my child," he replied, "to be so zealous a Christian."

"'Tain't that, sir," said the boy slowly. "I don't set much store by
that. But I've got to go to heaven--because I can't see Thomas Jefferson
no other way."

The rector did not smile. He was wiser than his generation, for he left
the great man's own religion to himself and God. He said merely:

"When you are older we shall see, my boy--we shall see."

Nicholas left with a chill of disappointment, but as he passed along the
street his name was called by Juliet Burwell, and she fluttered across
to him in all her mystifying flounces and her gracious smile.

"I was at the rector's," she said, "and he told me that you wanted to be
confirmed--and I want you to come into my Sunday-school class."

Nicholas met the kind eyes and blushed purple. Her beauty took away his
breath and made his pulses leap. The slow, musical drawl of her speech
soothed him like the running of clear water. He felt the image of Thomas
Jefferson totter upon its pedestal, but it was steadied with a
tremendous lurch. Jefferson was a man, after all, and this was only a
woman.

"Will you come?" asked the soft voice, and he stammered an amazed and
awkward assent.

VIII

On the Saturday after the day upon which Nicholas had pledged himself to
attend Sunday-school Juliet Burwell asked him to come into Kingsborough
and talk over the lesson for the following morning. At five o'clock in
the afternoon he dressed himself with trembling hands and a perturbed
heart; and for the first time in his life turned to look at his
reflection in the small, cracked mirror hanging above the washstand in
his stepmother's room.

As a finishing touch Marthy Burr tied a flaming plaid cravat beneath his
collar.

"You ain't much on looks," she remarked as she drew back to survey him,
"but you've got as peart a face as I ever seed. I reckon you'll be
plenty handsome for a man. I was al'ays kind of set against one of these
pink an' white men, somehow