to admit that the “young barbarian,” as she had characterized him in her thoughts, possessed, in the item of intelligence, much good raw material.  He not only had ideas, but also the power of expressing them, with freshness and vivacity.  She did not give herself sufficient credit for the effects that pleased her, or understand that it was her good breeding and good will that banished his tongue-tied embarrassment.  The most powerful influences are usually the most subtle, and Roger found, as had Vinton Arnold and others, that for some cause Mildred evoked the best there was in him.

Poor Mrs. Jocelyn did not have very much to say.  Her depression was too deep to be thrown off appreciably, but she replied to Mrs. Atwood’s remarks with her wonted gentleness.  Belle’s spirits soon passed all bounds, and one of her wild sallies provoked a grim smile from even Mr. Atwood, and she exulted over the fact all day.  In brief, the ice seemed quite broken between the family and the “boarders.”

The old farmer could scarcely believe his eyes when he went out to harness the horses to the three-seated wagon, for it was neat and clean, with buffalo robes spread over the seats.  “Well,” he ejaculated, “what’s a-coming over this here family, anyway?  I’m about all that’s left of the old rusty times, and rusty enough I feel, with everybody and everything so fixed up.  I s’pose I’ll have to stand it Sundays, and the day’ll be harder to git through than ever.  To-morrow I’ll be back in the kitchen again, and can eat my victuals without Miss Jocelyn looking on and saying to herself, ‘He ain’t nice; he don’t look pretty’; and then a-showin’ me by the most delicate little ways how I ought to perform.  She’s got Roger under her thumb or he wouldn’t have cleaned up this wagon in the middle of the night, for all I know, but I’m too old and set to be made over by a girl.”

Thus grumbling and mumbling to himself, Mr. Atwood prepared to take his family to the white, tree-shadowed meeting-house, at which he seldom failed to appear, for the not very devotional reason that it helped him to get through the day.  Like the crab-apple tree in the orchard, he was a child of the soil, and savored too much of his source.

Roger was of finer metal, and while possessing his father’s shrewdness, hard common-sense and disposition to hit the world between the eyes if it displeased him, his nature was ready at slight incentive, to throw off all coarseness and vulgarity.  The greater number of forceful American citizens are recruited from the ranks of just such young men—­strong, comparatively poor, somewhat rude in mind and person at the start, but of such good material that they are capable of a fine finish.