“Yes, and thank God that she did!  Roses and blessings and grace came with you,” said the Judge, with emotion.  “But this boy—­what is he to us, or what can he ever be?  He is so freaky, and unsteady, and passionate, and flies off at a word, and goes before he is touched.  He will do nothing, and come to nothing.”

“What can he do?  Would you really have him buy an axe and chop cord-wood, or work as a carpenter, or sell tape behind the counter?  Are there not enough to do all that work as fast as it needs to be done?  Is there not a clamorous need of brain-work, and who is there to do it?  Who is to govern, and manage, and control twenty years hence?  Look over all the young men whom you know, and who promises to be fit to lead?  Think over those you know in Cleveland, or Painesville, or Warren.  Is somebody to come from somewhere else?  Think of your own plans and expectations.  Who can help you?  I see possibilities in this wayward, passionate, hasty, generous youth.  He is a tender and devoted son, and I am glad he came back; and nobody knows how he may be pushed against us and others.”

“Well,” said the Judge, after a thoughtful pause, “what can I do?  What would you have me do—­change myself, or try to change him?”

“I don’t know,” thoughtfully:  “I think there is nothing you can do now.  I would wish you to cultivate a manner towards him that would leave it in your power to serve him or make him useful, if occasion presents.  He needs a better education, and perhaps a profession.  He should study law.  He has a capacity to become a very superior public speaker—­one of the first.  I don’t think there is much danger of his forming bad habits or associations.  He avoids and shuns everything of that kind.  You know he deeded his share of his father’s land to his brother, to provide a home for his mother, and I presume will remain, both from choice and necessity, with her for the present.”

The Judge mused over her words.  He did not tell her of having met and left Barton the other side of the Chagrin; nor did he disclose fully the dislike he felt for him, or the fears he may have entertained at the idea of any intimacy between him and Julia.  His wife mused also in her woman’s way.  She, too, would have hesitated to have Barton restored to the old relations of his boyhood.  While she knew of much to admire and hope for in him, she knew also that there was much to cause anxiety, if not apprehension.  In thinking further, she was inclined to call upon his mother, whom she much esteemed for her strong and decisive traits of character, soft and womanly though she was.  Cares and anxieties had kept her from association with her neighbors, among whom, as she knew, she seldom appeared, except on occasions of sickness or suffering, or when some event seemed to demand the presence of a deciding woman’s mind and will.  She remembered one or two such times in their earlier forest life, when Mrs. Ridgeley had quietly assumed her natural place for a day, to go back to her round of widowed love, care and toil.  She would make occasion to see her, and perhaps find some indirect way to be useful to both mother and son.