of the buffeting he is to get from a world that has a
good many worse places for a boy than the hearth of an old farmhouse,
and the sweet, though undemonstrative, affection of its family life.

But there were other evenings in the boy's life, that were different
from these at home, and one of them he will never forget. It opened
a new world to John, and set him into a great flutter. It produced a
revolution in his mind in regard to neckties; it made him wonder if
greased boots were quite the thing compared with blacked boots; and
he wished he had a long looking-glass, so that he could see, as he
walked away from it, what was the effect of round patches on the
portion of his trousers he could not see, except in a mirror; and if
patches were quite stylish, even on everyday trousers. And he began
to be very much troubled about the parting of his hair, and how to
find out on which side was the natural part.

The evening to which I refer was that of John's first party. He knew
the girls at school, and he was interested in some of them with a
different interest from that he took in the boys. He never wanted to
"take it out" with one of them, for an insult, in a stand-up fight,
and he instinctively softened a boy's natural rudeness when he was
with them. He would help a timid little girl to stand erect and
slide; he would draw her on his sled, till his hands were stiff with
cold, without a murmur; he would generously give her red apples into
which he longed to set his own sharp teeth; and he would cut in two
his lead-pencil for a girl, when he would not for a boy. Had he not
some of the beautiful auburn tresses of Cynthia Rudd in his skate,
spruce-gum, and wintergreen box at home? And yet the grand sentiment
of life was little awakened in John. He liked best to be with boys,
and their rough play suited him better than the amusements of the
shrinking, fluttering, timid, and sensitive little girls. John had
not learned then that a spider-web is stronger than a cable; or that
a pretty little girl could turn him round her finger a great deal
easier than a big bully of a boy could make him cry "enough."

John had indeed been at spelling-schools, and had accomplished the
feat of "going home with a girl" afterwards; and he had been growing
into the habit of looking around in meeting on Sunday, and noticing
how Cynthia was dressed, and not enjoying the service quite as much
if Cynthia was absent as when she was present. But there w