legal significance, the whole case often not occupying more than four
or five lines.

The cases, as there stated, convey no shadow of an idea to the
unlearned mind. What a tussle poor Bart had with them! How often he
turned them over, and bit at and hammered them, before they could be
made to reveal themselves.

The General looked grim when he handed him the book, and said that he
did so by the advice of Judge Hitchcock. He also loaned him Adam Smith
and Junius, with permission to take any books from his library during
the winter, and they parted--the General to go to his duties in the
Legislature, and Barton to work his way on through the winter and into
the law.

The devotion of Bart to his books took him wholly from association
with others. He wrote occasionally to Henry, saying little of what he
was doing, and going rarely to the post-office, and never elsewhere.
He developed more his care of his mother, and a protecting tenderness
to his younger brothers.

Kate Fisher's little party came and went, without Bart's attendance.

The Major was spreading himself out in building houses, clearing land,
and unconsciously preparing the way to a smash-up; and the immediate
care of the family devolved more and more upon the younger brother.