hat under Leila's care and a good out-of-door
life he will drop his girl-ways--but--"

"But what, James?"

"Oh! he has been taught that there is no shame in failure, no disgrace in
being afraid."

"How do you know he is afraid, my dear James?"

"Oh! I know." Leila's unwillingness to talk had given him some suspicion
of the truth. "Well, we shall see. He needs some rough boy-company. I
don't like to have the village boys alone with Leila, but when she has
John with her it may be as well to ask Dr. McGregor's son Tom to coast
and play with them."

"He has no manners," said Mrs. Penhallow.

"Then he may get some from John. He never will from Leila. I will take
care of the rest, Rivers. He has got to learn to ride."

"You won't be too hard on him, James?" said his wife.

"Not unless he needs it. Let us drop him."

"Have you seen yesterday's papers?" asked Rivers. "Our politics, North
and South, look to me stormy."

Penhallow shook his head at the tall rector. The angry strife of sections
and parties was the one matter he never discussed with Ann Penhallow. The
rector recalled it as he saw Mrs. Ann sit up and drop on her lap the
garment upon which her ever industrious hands were busy. Accepting
Penhallow's hint, Rivers said quickly, "But really there is nothing new,"
and then, "Tom McGregor will certainly be the better for our little
gentleman's good manners, and he too has something to learn of Tom."

"I should say he has," said Penhallow.

"A little dose of West Point, I suppose," laughed Mrs. Ann. "It is my
husband's one ideal of education."

"It must once, I fancy, have satisfied Ann Grey," retorted the Squire
smiling.

"I reserve any later opinion of James Penhallow," she said laughing, and
gathering up her sewing bag left them, declaring that now they might
smoke. The two men rose, and when alone began at once to talk of the
coming election in the fall of 1856 and the endless troubles arising out
of the Fugitive Slave Act.

The boy who had been the subject of their conversation was slowly
becoming used to novel surroundings and the influence they exerted. Ann
talked to him at times of his mother, but he had the disinclination to
speak of the dead which most children have, and had in some ways been
kept so much of a child as to astonish his aunt. Neither Leila nor any
one could have failed to like him and his gentle ways, and as between
him and the village boys she knew Leila preferred this clever, if