econd time, then put it in his pocket, and
stepped round behind the counter to sell five cents' worth of pink
gumdrops to little Abby Lawson.

When she had gone and the callers after mail had been satisfied, Irving
sat down at the table in the back of the store. He read the letter again
and mused over it for a few moments contentedly; then, with it lying
open before him, he proceeded to write an answer.

After finishing that, he drew from his pocket some papers--French
exercises, done in a scrawling, unformed hand.

It was the noon hour, when the people of the village were all eating
their dinners; Mr. Beasley had gone home, and Irving was undisturbed.
He helped himself to the crackers and dried beef which were his luncheon
perquisites, and with these at his elbow and nibbling them from time to
time he set about correcting his brother's French.

He sighed in spite of the happiness which was pervading him; would
Lawrence always go on confusing some of the forms of _etre_ and _avoir_?
Would he never learn to know the difference between _ils ont_ and _ils
sont_?

Irving made his corrections in a neat, pretty little hand, which of
itself seemed to reprove the student's awkward scrawl. He turned then to
his own studies, which he was pursuing in a tattered volume of
Blackstone's Commentaries on the English Common Law. He did not get on
very fast with this book, and sometimes he wondered what bearing it
could have on the practice of the law in Ohio at the present time. But
he had been advised to familiarize himself with the work in the interval
before he should enter a law school--an interval of such doubtful
length!

Mr. Beasley's entrance caused him to look up.

"I shall be leaving you in less than a month now, Mr. Beasley," he said.

"Got a job to teach, have you?" asked the storekeeper.

"Yes--at St. Timothy's School."

"Where may that be?"

"Up in New Hampshire."

"Quite a ways off. But I suppose you don't mind that much--having been
away to college."

"No, I think I'll like it. Besides,--now Lawrence will be able to go to
college this fall, and he and I will be pretty near each other. We'll be
able to spend our holidays together. I think it's fine."

"It does sound so," agreed Mr. Beasley. "Well, I'll be sorry to lose
you, Irving. The folks all like to have you wait on 'em; you're so
polite and tidy. But I know clerking in a country store ain't much of a
job for a college graduate, and I'm glad you've f