de the discovery that apathy and amiability are not
identical, he never revealed his disappointment to the world,--perhaps
for the same reason that he kept silence over the failure of other
investments, lest the rumor should injure his reputation for
shrewdness as a business-man.

From the beginning Mrs. Mullett Flint had taken one of her apathetic
dislikes to the little Jonathan. He was no kindred of hers, and she
thought it rather hard at her time of life to have her housekeeping
put about by a boy whose feet were always muddy and who had a
reprehensible habit of tucking them under him when he sat down, as he
did with utter lack of discrimination in the matter of relative values
in furniture. Her manner toward the child was not intentionally
unkind, but it was wholly devoid of the tenderness which is as
necessary to the growth of a child as air and sunshine to a plant. She
always called him by his full name, which sounded strangely prim and
formal applied to the little kilted figure with its thatch of black
hair. He recalled distinctly once going up to the long pier-glass
between the two windows and stroking his own hair as he had seen a
mother across the street do for her boy at the window opposite, and
then saying softly, in imitation of supposed maternal tones, "Johnny!
Dear little Johnny!"

Such moods of sentiment were exceedingly rare in Flint's earliest
infancy, and grew rarer as he advanced in life. At twelve he was sent
to boarding-school, and thence to college, with scarcely an interval
of home life. In college he formed several friendships; but in each he
was and felt himself the superior, whereby he lost the inestimable
privilege of looking up.

There had been a decided difference of opinion between Mr. Mullett
Flint and his nephew in regard to the choice of a college. Mr. Flint
strongly urged that the family traditions should be preserved, and
that Jonathan should pursue his education under the shadow of old
Nassau, "where giant Edwards stamped his iron heel." The nephew was as
strongly prejudiced against Princeton as the uncle in its favor. He
declared that the educative effect of living for four years within
sight of his venerated ancestor's grave in President's Row was more
than offset by other considerations, and that if the influence of the
departed still lingered about the college halls he was as likely to
fall under the spell of Aaron Burr as under that of Jonathan Edwards.
With all the headstro