arts, was at the post-office this afternoon, and perhaps
you met him."

"Whom do you mean?" asked Julia.

"Your mother's pet, Bart Ridgeley."

"Now, papa, that is hardly kind, after what you said of him the other
day. He is not mother's pet at all. She is only kind to him, as to
everybody. Indeed, he don't seem to me like anybody's pet, to be
patted and kept in-doors when it rains, and eat jellies, and be nice.
I saw him at the store a moment; he was very civil, and merely asked
after mamma, and went out."

"Did you ask him to call and see mamma?" asked her father a little
gravely.

"Not at all. The truth is, papa, after what you said I could not ask
him, and was hardly civil to him."

"Was it unpleasant to be hardly civil to him?"

"No; though I like to be civil to everybody. You know I have seen
little of him since I came home, and when I have, he was sometimes
silent and distant, and not like what he was before I went away."

"You find him improved in appearance and manners?" persisted the
Judge.

"Well, he was always good-looking, and had the way of a gentleman.
Miss Walters seemed quite taken with him, and was surprised that he
had grown up here in the woods."

Her father was silent a moment, and the subject was changed. Mrs.
Markham was attentive to what was said of poor Bart, but made no
comment at the time.

* * * * *

In their room, that night, in her sweet, serious way, she said to
her husband, "Edward, I do not want to say a word in favor of Barton
Ridgeley. I do not ask you to change your opinion of him or your
course towards him; but I wish to ask if it is necessary to discuss
him, especially with Julia?"

"Why?"

"Well, can it be productive of good? If you are mistaken in your
estimate of him, you do him injustice, and in any event you will call
her attention to him, and she may observe and study him; and almost
any young woman who should do that might become interested in him."

"Do you think so? Men don't like him."

"Is that a reason why a woman would not?"

"Have you discovered any reason to think that Julia cares in the least
for him?"

"Julia is young, and, like the women of our family, develops in these
respects slowly; but, like the rest of us, she will have her own
fancies some time, and you know"--with a still softer voice--"that
one of them left a beautiful home, and a circle of love and luxury, to
follow her heart into the woods."

"Yes