forming bad habits or associations. He avoids and shuns everything of
that kind. You know he deeded his share of his father's land to his
brother, to provide a home for his mother, and I presume will remain,
both from choice and necessity, with her for the present."

The Judge mused over her words. He did not tell her of having met and
left Barton the other side of the Chagrin; nor did he disclose fully
the dislike he felt for him, or the fears he may have entertained at
the idea of any intimacy between him and Julia. His wife mused also
in her woman's way. She, too, would have hesitated to have Barton
restored to the old relations of his boyhood. While she knew of much
to admire and hope for in him, she knew also that there was much
to cause anxiety, if not apprehension. In thinking further, she was
inclined to call upon his mother, whom she much esteemed for her
strong and decisive traits of character, soft and womanly though
she was. Cares and anxieties had kept her from association with her
neighbors, among whom, as she knew, she seldom appeared, except on
occasions of sickness or suffering, or when some event seemed
to demand the presence of a deciding woman's mind and will. She
remembered one or two such times in their earlier forest life, when
Mrs. Ridgeley had quietly assumed her natural place for a day, to
go back to her round of widowed love, care and toil. She would make
occasion to see her, and perhaps find some indirect way to be useful
to both mother and son.




CHAPTER VI.