anging_ expressions. Silverthorn's
grew rounder and brightened a degree in color; his glance had less
momentum in it; he looked more commonplace and contented. On the other
hand, Vibbard, through mental exertion (for he had lately been
studying hard) and the society of his junior, had modified the inertia
of his own expression. The strength of his features began to be
mingled with gentleness. But this I recalled only at a later time.

Near the end of the two years' limit, when the boon companions were on
the eve of taking their degrees, I found that another element had come
into their affairs.

Going out one evening to visit a friend who lived at some distance on
one of the large railroads, I had a glimpse of a small manufacturing
place, which the train passed with great rapidity at late twilight.
The large mill was already lighted up, and every window flashed as we
sped by. But the sunset had not quite faded, and, from the colored sky
far away behind the mill, light enough still came to show the narrow
glen with its wall of autumn foliage on either side, the black and
silent river above the dam, the sudden shining screen of falling water
at the dam itself, and again a smooth dark current below, running
toward us and under the railroad embankment. There was a small
settlement of operatives' houses near the factory, and two or three
larger homes were visible, snugly placed among the trees. We were
swept away out of sight in a moment; but there was something so
striking in that single glimpse, that a traveller in the next seat,
who had not spoken to me before, turned and asked me what place it
was. I did not know. I afterward learned that it was Stansby, a
factory village perhaps forty miles from Cambridge. Finding that the
memory of the spot clung to me, I wished to know more about it; and
one day in the following spring, when I needed a change from the city,
I actually went out there. Stansby did not prove to be a very
picturesque place; yet its gentle hills, with outcroppings of cold
granite, the deep-hued river between, and the cotton-mill near the
railroad, somehow roused a decided interest which I never have been
able wholly to account for. I enjoyed strolling about, but was
beginning to think of a train back to Boston, when a turn of the road,
a quarter of a mile from the mill, brought me face to face with a
young girl who was approaching slowly with a book in her hand, which
she read as she walked.

She was no