uld get no good out of John Harlow. He got up
early and milked the cow. He cut wood and carried it in for Huldah. He
rode old Bob to the brook for water. He did everything that he had been
accustomed to do when a boy, finding as much pleasure in forgetting
that he was a man as he had once found in hoping to be a man. The two
boys enjoyed his society greatly, and his father was delighted to see
that he had retained his interest in the farm life, though the deacon
evidently felt an unconquerable hostility to what he called "that
scrub-brush on the upper lip." I think if John had known how strong his
father's feeling was against this much cherished product he would have
mowed the crop and grazed the field closely until he got back to the
city.

John was not insensible to Janet Dunton's charms. She could talk
fluently about all the authors most in vogue, and the effect of her
fluency was really dazzling to a man not yet cultivated enough himself
to see how superficial her culture was; for all her learning floated on
top. None of it had influenced her own culture. She was brim full of
that which she had acquired, but it had not been incorporated into her
own nature. John did not see this, and he was infatuated with the idea
of marrying a wife of such attainments. How she would dazzle his
friends! How the governor would like to talk to her! How she would
shine in his parlors! How she would delight people as she gave them tea
and talk at the same time. John was in love with her as he would have
been in love with a new tea urn or a rare book. She was a nice thing to
show. Other people than John have married on the strength of such a
feeling and called it love; for John really imagined that he was in
love. And during that week he talked and walked and rode in the sleigh
with Miss Dunton, and had made up his mind that he would carry this
brilliant prize to New York. But, with lawyerlike caution, he thought
he would put off the committal as long as possible. If his heart had
been in his attentions the caution would not have been worth much.
Caution is a good breakwater against vanity, but it isn't worth much
against the springtide of love, as John Harlow soon found out.

For toward the end of the week he began to feel a warmer feeling for
Miss Janet. It was not in the nature of things that John should walk
and talk with a pleasant girl a week, and not feel something more than
his first interested desire to marry a showy wife. His