.

He was a favorite with the other sex, who love poetry and romance, as
he well knew, for which reason he often used the phrases of both, and in
such a way as to answer his purpose with most of those whom he wished
to please. He had one great advantage in the sweepstakes of life: he was
not handicapped with any burdensome ideals. He took everything at its
marked value. He accepted the standard of the street as a final fact for
to-day, like the broker's list of prices.

His whole plan of life was laid out. He knew that law was the best
introduction to political life, and he meant to use it for this end.
He chose to begin his career in the country, so as to feel his way more
surely and gradually to its ultimate aim; but he had no intention of
burning his shining talents in a grazing district, however tall its
grass might grow. His business was not with these stiff-jointed,
slow-witted graziers, but with the supple, dangerous, far-seeing men who
sit scheming by the gas-light in the great cities, after all the lamps
and candles are out from the Merrimac to the Housatonic. Every strong
and every weak point of those who might probably be his rivals were laid
down on his charts, as winds and currents and rocks are marked on those
of a navigator. All the young girls in the country, and not a few in the
city, with which, as mentioned, he had frequent relations, were on his
list of possible availabilities in the matrimonial line of speculation,
provided always that their position and prospects were such as would
make them proper matches for so considerable a person as the future Hon.
William Murray Bradshaw.

Master Gridley had made a careful study of his old pupil since they had
resided in the same village. The old professor could not help admiring
him, notwithstanding certain suspicious elements in his character; for
after muddy village talk, a clear stream of intelligent conversation was
a great luxury to the hard-headed scholar. The more he saw of him,
the more he learned to watch his movements, and to be on his guard in
talking with him. The old man could be crafty, with all his simplicity,
and he had found out that under his good-natured manner there often
lurked some design more or less worth noting, and which might involve
other interests deserving protection.

For some reason or other the old Master of Arts had of late experienced
a certain degree of relenting with regard to himself, probably brought
about by the ex