am going. I have felt that you and mother ought to know my decision
at once."

As he stood before them in the dusk and saw on their countenances
an incredible change of expression, he naturally mistook it, and
spoke again with more authority.

"Don't say anything to me now, father! And don't oppose me when the
time comes; it would be useless. Try to learn while I am getting
ready to give your consent and to obtain mother's. That is all I
have to say."

He turned quickly away and passed out of the yard gate toward the
barn, for the evening feeding.

The father and mother followed his figure with their eyes,
forgetting each other, as long as it remained in sight. If the
flesh of their son had parted and dissolved away into nothingness,
disclosing a hidden light within him like the evening star, shining
close to their faces, they could scarce have been struck more
speechless. But after a few moments they had adjusted themselves to
this lofty annunciation. The mother, unmindful of what she had just
said, began to recall little incidents of the lad's life to show
that this was what he was always meant to be. She loosened from her
throat the breast-pin containing the hair of the three heads
braided together, and drew her husband's attention to it with a
smile. He, too, disregarding his disparagement of the few minutes
previous, now began to admit with warmth how good a mind David had
always had. He prophesied that at college he would outstrip the
other boys from that neighborhood. This, in its way, was also fresh