Irving made his corrections in a neat, pretty little hand, which of
itself seemed to reprove the student’s awkward scrawl. He turned then to
his own studies, which he was pursuing in a tattered volume of
Blackstone’s Commentaries on the English Common Law. He did not get on
very fast with this book, and sometimes he wondered what bearing it
could have on the practice of the law in Ohio at the present time. But
he had been advised to familiarize himself with the work in the interval
before he should enter a law school—an interval of such doubtful
length!

Mr. Beasley’s entrance caused him to look up.

“I shall be leaving you in less than a month now, Mr. Beasley,” he said.

“Got a job to teach, have you?” asked the storekeeper.

“Yes—at St. Timothy’s School.”

“Where may that be?”

“Up in New Hampshire.”

“Quite a ways off. But I suppose you don’t mind that much—having been
away to college.”

“No, I think I’ll like it. Besides,—now Lawrence will be able to go to
college this fall, and he and I will be pretty near each other. We’ll be
able to spend our holidays together. I think it’s fine.”

“It does sound so,” agreed Mr. Beasley. “Well, I’ll be sorry to lose