; "and I want you to make him feel
perfectly comfortable in doing so."

"Certainly, if he will; but pray don't spoil him, Alice, darling.
Because he is a youth of some scholarship, a good deal of refinement,
and develops a talent for drawing, it is no reason he should be made to
forget he's a blacksmith."

"It is too late for theories to-night, Hamilton," she replied,
playfully. "I have none, you know, like you and Frank Darry. I only wish
to treat him considerately. _We_ can afford to forget distinctions which
undoubtedly seem a great barrier to him. If he stays, he shares our
hospitality like any other guest."

The answer I did not catch. I had heard enough, however, to feel both
grateful and irritated.

I went in and warmed myself by the coal-fire in the library. I looked
covertly at books and Miss Merton while toasting my hands, and answered
intelligently, I believe, Mr. Hamilton Lang's questions as to the
village and my pursuits there. I did not neglect to speak a few cordial,
yet respectful, words to Miss Darry, at parting; but all I clearly
recall is the fact that I insisted upon going home that night, and that
Miss Merton, kindly offering to lend me any books I could find time to
read, laid her little hand in my rough palm at parting.

CHAPTER V.

There was a variety-store on Main Street, with "JANE DINSMORE" painted
in letters of mingled blue and orange on the sign above its door. Miss
Dinsmore boarded in one of those green lanes whose inhabitants formed
the second circle of Warren society. To this fact it may have been
partly due that she was less appealed to than Mrs. Bray on all questions
of social etiquette; but undoubtedly a more sufficient reason was to be
found in Miss Dinsmore herself, who, though more beloved than any other
woman in the village, had a suppressed, quiet manner, not at all adapted
for leadership. Her reputation was that of having been a pretty, giddy
young girl, a farmer's daughter; but some great crisis had swept over
her life, muffling all the tinkling melodies, the ringing laugh, the
merry coquettings of the village belle. It was rumored that the old
story of disappointed love had changed the current of her life. Jenny
Dinsmore, though humbly born and bred, had been fastidious; the uncouth
advances of her rustic admirers were not agreeable to her; and so the
romance of the fresh young heart was expended on a college youth, who
found his way to Warren from classic halls for th