During this statement, made with the utmost courtesy, Bart looked Greer steadily in the face, and received a calm, full, unwinking look in return.  Greer assured him that his notions of the ethics of honor, while they were nice, were his own, and he was glad to act upon them; that he was not on that day fully authorized to open up the matter, but should doubtless receive full instructions in a day or two; and he had called to-day more to keep his word with Bart than to enter upon an actual business transaction.  Nothing could be franker and more open than his way and manner in saying this; and as he was trained to keenness of observation, he may have detected the flitting smile that just hovered on Bart’s lips.  After a little pleasant commonplace talk of common things, the leisurely Greer took a cordial leave, and never approached Bart but once again.

At the Whig nominating convention, for the county of Geanga, that Fall, Major Ridgeley, who had, by a vote of the officers of his regiment, become its Colonel, was a candidate for the office of sheriff.  He was popular, well-known, and his prospects fair.  The office was attractive, its emoluments good, and it was generally sought after by the best class of ambitious men in the counties.

He was defeated in the convention through a defection of his supposed friends, which he charged, justly or otherwise, upon Judge Markham.  The disappointment was bitter, and he was indignant, of course.  Like Bart, when he thought a mishap was without remedy, he neither complained nor asked explanations.  When he and the Judge next met, it was with cool contempt on his side, and with surprise, and then coldness, on the part of Markham.  Their words were few and courteous, but for the next eighteen months they avoided each other.  Of course, Bart sympathized with his brother Morris; although he did not suppose the Judge was ever committed, still he felt that he and all his friends should have stood by his brother, and apprehended that the Judge’s dislike to him may have influenced his course.  However that may have been, Judge Markham never approached Bart, who continued to act upon his old determination to avoid the whole Markham family.

His engagements took the Judge to the State capital for the winter, where, with his wife and Julia, he remained until the early spring, following; as did also General and Mrs. Ford.

Barton undertook the school in his mother’s neighborhood for the winter, with the understanding that he might attend to calls in the line of his proposed profession, which grew upon his hands.  He pushed his studies with unremitting ardor; he had already made arrangements with Mr. Ranney to enter his office on the first of the April following, and hoped to secure an admission in the next September, when he should seek a point for business, to which he proposed to remove his mother and younger brothers, as soon afterwards as his means would warrant.