e, she could not
have discussed the affairs of this planet with more complete
impartiality, not to say indifference. Theories, doctrines, faiths, and
even moral duties, she treated as Charlton did beetles; ran pins through
them and held them up where she could get a good view of them--put them
away as curiosities. She listened with an attention that was surely
flattering enough, but Charlton felt that he had not made much impression
on her. There was a sort of attraction in this repulsion. There was an
excitement in his ambition to impress this impartial and judicial mind
with the truth and importance of the glorious and regenerating views he
had embraced. His self-esteem was pleased at the thought that he should
yet conquer this cool and open-minded girl by the force of his own
intelligence. He admired her intellectual self-possession all the more
that it was a quality which he lacked. Before that afternoon ride was
over, he was convinced that he sat by the supreme woman of all he had
ever known. And who was so fit to marry the supreme woman as he, Albert
Charlton, who was to do so much by advocating all sorts of reforms to
help the world forward to its goal?

He liked that word goal. A man's pet words are the key to his character.
A man who talks of "vocation," of "goal," and all that, may be laughed at
while he is in the period of intellectual fermentation. The time is sure
to come, however, when such a man can excite other emotions than mirth.

And so Charlton, full of thoughts of his "vocation" and the world's
"goal," was slipping into an attachment for a woman to whom both words
were Choctaw. Do you wonder at it? If she had had a vocation also, and
had talked about goals, they would mutually have repelled each other,
like two bodies charged with the same kind of electricity. People with
vocations can hardly fall in love with other people with vocations.

But now Metropolisville was coming in sight, and Albert's attention was
attracted by the conversation of Mr. Minorkey and the fat gentleman.

"Mr. Plausaby has selected an admirable site," Charlton heard the fat
gentleman remark, and as Mr. Plausaby was his own step-father, he began
to listen. "Pretty sharp! pretty sharp!" continued the fat gentleman. "I
tell you what, Mr. Minorkey, that man Plausaby sees through a millstone
with a hole in it. I mean to buy some lots in this place. It'll be the
county-seat and a railroad junction, as sure as you're alive. And
P