-pots. The suspicions he entertained put him on
his guard at a time when he was in danger of falling a victim to the
rhetoric of orators and editors, and they preserved him from many a
mistaken belief.

During the period that intervened between his escape and the
announcement of the restoration of civil government in Georgia, Gabriel
settled down to a course of reading in the law office of Judge Vardeman,
Colonel Tom's brother. He did this on the advice of those who were old
enough to know that idleness does not agree with a healthy youngster,
especially in a large city. His experience in Judge Vardeman's office
decided his career. He was fascinated from the very beginning. He found
the dullest law-book interesting; and he became so absorbed in his
reading that the genial Judge was obliged to warn him that too much
study was sometimes as bad as none.

Yet the lad's appetite grew by what it fed on. A new field had been
opened up to him, and he entered it with delight. Here was what he had
been longing for, and there were moments when he felt sure that he had
heard delivered from the bench, or had dreamed, the grave and sober
maxims and precepts that confronted him on the printed page. He pursued
his studies in a state of exaltation that caused the days to fly by
unnoted. He thought of home, and of his grandmother, and a vision of Nan
sometimes disturbed his slumbers; but for the time being there was
nothing real but the grim commentators and expounders of the common law.

When Mr. Sanders returned home, bearing the news of Gabriel's escape,
Nan Dorrington laid siege to his patience, and insisted that he go over
every detail of the event, not once but a dozen times. To her it was a
remarkable adventure, which fitted in well with the romances which she
had been weaving all her life. How did Gabriel look when he ran from the
depot at Malvern? Was he frightened? And how in the world did he manage
to get in the waggon, and crawl on the inside of the sham bale of cotton
and hide so that nobody could see him? And what did he say and how did
he look when Mr. Sanders found him asleep in the cotton-bale box, or the
cotton-box bale, whichever you might call it?

"Why, honey, I've told you all I know an' a whole lot more," protested
Mr. Sanders. "Ef ever'body was name Nan, I'd be the most populous man in
the whole county."

"Well, tell me this," Nan insisted; "what did he talk about when he woke
up? Did he ask about any of the