attracting attention from his
purposes to his personality.

"Invitations to accept public dinners as a compliment to himself have
received from him this kind of reply:

"'A proper attention to the duties, on the discharge of which you
so kindly desire to compliment me requires that I should decline
your invitation.'"

All this was new to me, although much more was said touching his love
for simple folk regarding which I needed no instruction. Altogether, it
helped me to feel the deep foundations on which my friend, the Senator,
had been building in his public life.

Going out with the crowd that evening, I met Sally and Mr. and Mrs.
Dunkelberg. The latter did not speak to me and when I asked Sally if I
could walk home with her she answered curtly, "No, thank you."

In following the schoolmaster I have got a bit ahead of my history. Soon
after the opening of the new year--ten days or so later it may have
been--I had begun to feel myself encompassed by a new and subtle force.
It was a thing as intangible as heat but as real as fire and more
terrible, it seemed to me. I felt it first in the attitude of my play
fellows. They denied me the confidence and intimacy which I had enjoyed
before. They whispered together in my presence. In all this I had not
failed to observe that Henry Wills had taken a leading part. The
invisible, inaudible, mysterious thing wrought a great change in me. It
followed me through the day and lay down with me at night. I wondered
what I had done. I carefully surveyed my clothes. They looked all right
to me. My character was certainly no worse than it had been. How it
preyed upon my peace and rest and happiness--that mysterious hidden
thing!

One day Uncle Peabody came down to see me and I walked through the
village with him. We met Mr. Dunkelberg, who merely nodded and hurried
along. Mr. Bridges, the merchant, did not greet him warmly and chat with
him as he had been wont to do. I saw that The Thing--as I had come to
think of it--was following him also. How it darkened his face! Even now
I can feel the aching of the deep, bloodless wounds of that day. I could
bear it better alone. We were trying to hide our pain from each other
when we said good-by. How quickly my uncle turned away and walked toward
the sheds! He came rarely to the village of Canton after that.

I was going home at noon one day and while passing a crowd of boys I was
shoved rudely into the fence. Turning, I saw