"He has been fond of books, then--had he many?"

"Oh, yes, a whole drawer of them, and he used to get them besides
from the schoolmaster, Mr. Calvert, a very good man that lives
about half a mile from the village, and has a world of books. But
now he neither gets books from other people nor reads what he's
got. I'm dubious, Brother Stevens, that he's read too much for his
own good. Something's not right here, I'm a thinking."

The good old lady touched her head with her finger and in this
manner indicated her conjecture as to the seat of her son's disease.
Stevens answered her encouragingly.

"I scarcely think, Mrs. Hinkley, that it can be anything so bad.
The young man is at that age when a change naturally takes place
in the mind and habits. He wants to go into the world, I suspect.
He's probably tired of doing nothing. What is to be his business?
It's high time that such a youth should have made a choice."

"That's true, Brother Stevens, but he's been the apple to our eyes,
and we haven't been willing that he should take up any business
that would--carry him away from us. He's done a little farming
about the country, but that took him away, and latterly he's kept
pretty much at home, going over his books and studying, now one
and now another, just as Mr. Calvert gave them to him."

"What studies did he pursue?"

"Well, I can't tell you. He was a good time at Latin, and then he