l grow more thoughtful as you grow older," said the General.

"If I do," said Bart, "I know those who think I can't grow old fast
enough."

The General gave him the second volume of Blackstone, with the
injunction to be two weeks with it.

"Suppose I finish it in a week?"

"You must not; but if you do, bring it back, and take a scolding."

"Certainly," said Bart.

The General asked him to go in to tea. Bart thought that would not do,
and excused himself.

* * * * *

The end of another week found Bart at the end of the second volume,
and also at General Ford's office. The General was away; but he found
an opportunity further to cultivate the acquaintance of Mrs. Ford, who
introduced him to several of her circle of acquaintance, and permitted
him to take the third volume of Blackstone.

The work was finished with the fourth week, to General Ford's
satisfaction, and Bart was then set to try his teeth on Buller's "Nisi
Prius," made up of the most condensed of all possible abstracts of
intricate cases, stated in the fewest possible words, and those of old
legal significance, the whole case often not occupying more than four
or five lines.

The cases, as there stated, convey no shadow of an idea to the
unlearned mind. What a tussle poor Bart had with them! How often he
turned them over, and bit at and hammered them, before they could be
made to reveal themselves.

The General looked grim when he handed him the book, and said that he
did so by the advice of Judge Hitchcock. He also loaned him Adam Smith
and Junius, with permission to take any books from his library during
the winter, and they parted--the General to go to his duties in the
Legislature, and Barton to work his way on through the winter and into
the law.

The devotion of Bart to his books took him wholly from association
with others. He wrote occasionally to Henry, saying little of what he
was doing, and going rarely to the post-office, and never elsewhere.
He developed more his care of his mother, and a protecting tenderness
to his younger brothers.

Kate Fisher's little party came and went, without Bart's attendance.

The Major was spreading himself out in building houses, clearing land,
and unconsciously preparing the way to a smash-up; and the immediate
care of the family devolved more and more upon the younger brother.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE YOUNG IDEA SHOOTS.

There was a region south, on the State ro