wall opened, and a voice came out of it, saying: "You mean something
to occupy their minds?"

"Exactly so!" cried Sewell. "Something to occupy their minds. Now,"
he continued, with a hope of getting into some sort of human
relations with his guest which he had not felt before, "why
shouldn't a young man on a farm take up some scientific study, like
geology, for instance, which makes every inch of earth vocal, every
rock historic, and the waste places social?" Barker looked so
blankly at him that he asked again, "You understand?"

"Yes," said Barker; but having answered Sewell's personal question,
he seemed to feel himself in no wise concerned with the general
inquiry which Sewell had made, and he let it lie where Sewell had
let it drop. But the minister was so well pleased with the fact that
Barker had understood anything of what he had said, that he was
content to let the notion he had thrown out take its chance of
future effect, and rising, said briskly: "Come upstairs with me into
my study, and I will show you a picture of Agassiz. It's a very good
photograph."

He led the way out of the reception-room, and tripped lightly in his
slippered feet up the steps against which Barker knocked the toes of
his clumsy boots. He was not large, nor naturally loutish, but the
heaviness of the country was in every touch and movement. He dropped
the photograph twice in his endeavour to hold it between his stiff
thumb and finger.

Sewell picked it up each time for him, and restored it to his
faltering hold. When he had securely lodged it there, he asked