d ignorance can be as easily hood-winked by kindness as
by contumely.

This little Jerome, who had leaped, under the spur of necessity, to
an independence of understanding beyond his years, allowed himself to
be quite misled by the Squire as to his attitude in the matter of the
mortgage. In spite of the momentary light reflected from the doctor's
shrewder intelligence which had flashed upon his scheme, the Squire
was able to delude him with a renewed belief in it, after he had
informed him of the transfer of the mortgage-deed, which took place
the next morning.

"I decided to buy that wood-lot of your father's, as your mother was
willing," said the Squire; "and as I had not the money in hand to pay
down, I gave my note to your mother for it, as you proposed the
doctor should do, and allowed six per cent. interest."

Jerome looked at him in a bewildered way.

"Well, what is the matter? Aren't you as willing to take my note as
the doctor's?" asked the Squire.

"Is it fair?" asked Jerome, hesitatingly.

"Fair to you?"

"No; to you."

"Of course it is fair enough to me. Why not?"

"The doctor didn't think it was," said the boy, getting more and more
bewildered.

"Why didn't he?"

"I don't--know--" faltered Jerome; and he did not, for the glimmer of
light which he had got from the doctor's worldly wisdom had quite
failed him. He had seen quite clearly that it was not fair, but now
he could not.

"Oh, well, I dare say it is fairer for me than for him," said the
Squire, easily. "Probably he had the ready money; I haven't the ready
money; that makes all the difference. Don't you see it does?"

"Yes--sir," replied Jerome, hesitatingly, and tried to think he saw;
but he did not. A mind so young and immature as his is not unlike the
gaseous age of planets, overlaid with great shifting masses of vapor,
which part to disclose dazzling flame-points and incomparable gleams,
then close again. Only time can accomplish a nearer balance of light
in minds and planets.

Then, too, as the first strain of unwonted demands relaxed a little
through use, Jerome's mental speed, which seemed to have taken him
into manhood at a bound, slackened, and he even fell back somewhat in
his tracks. He was still beyond what he had ever been before, for one
cannot return from growth. He would never be as much of a child
again, but he was more of a child than he had been yesterday.

His mother also had been instrumental towards replacing