that prize,
Tom--bliss that was troubled a little at times, it is true, but bliss
nevertheless; then she died, and her husband and his childless sister,
Mrs. Pratt, continued this bliss-business at the old stand. Tom was
petted and indulged and spoiled to his entire content--or nearly that.
This went on till he was nineteen, then he was sent to Yale. He went
handsomely equipped with "conditions," but otherwise he was not an object
of distinction there. He remained at Yale two years, and then threw up
the struggle. He came home with his manners a good deal improved; he had
lost his surliness and brusqueness, and was rather pleasantly soft and
smooth, now; he was furtively, and sometimes openly, ironical of speech,
and given to gently touching people on the raw, but he did it with a
good-natured semiconscious air that carried it off safely, and kept him
from getting into trouble. He was as indolent as ever and showed no very
strenuous desire to hunt up an occupation. People argued from this that
he preferred to be supported by his uncle until his uncle's shoes should
become vacant. He brought back one or two new habits with him, one of
which he rather openly practiced--tippling--but concealed another, which
was gambling. It would not do to gamble where his uncle could hear of
it; he knew that quite well.

Tom's Eastern polish was not popular among the young people. They could
have endured it, perhaps, if Tom had stopped there; but he wore gloves,
and that they couldn't stand, and wouldn't; so he was mainly without
society. He brought home with him a suit of clothes of such exquisite
style and cut in fashion--Eastern fashion, city fashion--that it filled
everybody with anguish and was regarded as a peculiarly wanton affront.
He enjoyed the feeling which he was exciting, and paraded the town serene
and happy all day; but the young fellows set a tailor to work that night,
and when Tom started out on his parade next morning, he found the old
deformed Negro bell ringer straddling along in his wake tricked out in a
flamboyant curtain-calico exaggeration of his finery, and imitating his
fancy Eastern graces as well as he could.

Tom surrendered, and after that clothed himself in the local fashion. But
the dull country town was tiresome to him, since his acquaintanceship
with livelier regions, and it grew daily more and more so. He began to
make little trips to St. Louis for refreshment. There he found
companionship to