"I have read The Law of Virginia," answered the boy. "I borrowed it. I
worked a week for Mr. Douglas, and read The Law of Nations rest-hours.
Mrs. Selden, on the Three-Notched Road, gave me The Federalist. Are you
a lawyer, sir?"

The gentleman laughed, and the genie behind the counter laughed. Young
Mocket plucked Lewis Rand by the sleeve, but the latter was intent upon
the personage before him and did not heed.

"Yes," said the gentleman, "I am a lawyer. Are you going to be one?"

"I am," said the boy. "Will you tell me what books I ought to buy? I
have two dollars."

The other looked at him with keen light eyes. "That amount will not buy
you many books," he said. "You should enter some lawyer's office where
you may have access to his library. You spoke of the Three-Notched Road.
Are you from Albemarle?"

"Yes, sir. I am Gideon Rand's son."

"Indeed! Gideon Rand! Then Mary Wayne was your mother?"

"Yes, sir."

"I remember," said the gentleman, "when she married your father. She was
a beautiful woman. I heard of her death while I was in Paris."

The boy's regard, at first solely for the books, had been for some
moments transferred to the gentleman who, it seemed, was a lawyer, and