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 powerless in the grip of his stubbornness. Often he thought of confiding in Aunt Verona but another precocious instinct warned him that Aunt Verona herself was a victim of some similar fate. At night he wrestled long hours with his angel rehearsing conciliatory speeches, yet day after day he passed Walter without a sign, and became almost mechanically oblivious of his friend's existence, all the while mourning his loss.

During the first days of spring, in Paul's eleventh year, Dr. Wilcove took him for a drive to Bridgetown, where he had to attend a patient. This was an ecstatic occasion. Aunt Verona gave him twenty-five cents to buy whatever he chose and Dr. Wilcove added a "quarter" for candy. Fifty cents! Gee-rusalem! It was more than he had ever had to spend, even on Firsts of July. While Dr. Wilcove paid his call, Paul wandered through the river town inspecting the shops, and finally selected a green top, a dozen striped glass marbles, and a "real agate" shooter. With the candy quarter he bought a mouth-organ and a "souvenir" pen-wiper to present to Aunt Verona, whereupon Dr. Wilcove himself went into another shop and returned with a bag of sweets, which capped the glories of the expedition.

The return drive, past purple furrows and groves of shimmering green hazel, was an uninterrupted delight. The little mare knew she was homeward bound and ran cheerfully all the way. Dr. Wilcove let Paul hold the reins, and told him stories about the deserted farmhouses on his route, thrilling him when he pointed out the house in which his mother and Aunt Verona had been born. Then Dr. Wilcove, in that incorrigible grown-up manner, shook his head sadly and remarked, "It might have been as famous a house as Sam Slick's in its way!" Paul was too diffident to ask for an explanation, and the doctor's next remark, about "throwing away a career," got mixed