esy partnership,' when he was
ready to move to the city. But Gwynne deliberately remained undecided
for the present, although half inclined to practise in the country for
some years. If he could not have the inestimable education of the old
days, when lawyers jogged about the country with the circuit judges for
months at a time, he could at least get into close contact with the
plain people in a manner that in a city would be practically impossible.
Until the rains began, and after his definite understanding with Colton,
he had, during his hours of exercise, formed the habit of "dropping in"
upon the small farmers of his political district, under pretence of
asking their advice; gauging and sowing. Upon the men that had bought
land of him he was able to bestow many small favors, and his old
experience with the tenantry of Capheaton gave him an instinctive
knowledge of their wants that added to the sum of his popularity. To his
inferiors he had never shown the arrogance of his nature, and he
welcomed these small toilers as a substitute for his old tenants; for he
had missed the poor that kept the sympathies quick--and, perhaps, gave
richer shadows to life.

His long lank American figure and slight resemblance to Hiram Otis, who
had been an institution if not a favorite, his readiness to stand drinks
to his farmer acquaintances, and others, whom he happened to meet in
Main Street, the approachableness he had cultivated with some effort,
combined with the subtle suggestion that he would not permit a liberty;
a characteristic that every true man respects; his reputation for being
"dead straight," and his insistence upon receiving his just dues--"all
that was coming to him"--in spite of the easy terms he made with several
to whom he sold land; all this, in addition to the dignity of being the
largest rancher in the county, and a law partner of Judge Leslie, had
quickly made him a marked as well as a popular figure. Even his accent
was unnoted in that State of many accents.

He had thought out for himself all that Mr. Wheaton had suggested, and
if he still had his moments of depression and disgust, and even of
revolt, much of his old confidence was returning; although he sometimes
reflected, with a sort of whimsical bitterness, upon the difficulty of
sustaining an impression of innate greatness unaided by an occasional
demonstration. But he had, at least, learned to see people merely as
human beings without taking their shel