“Oh, but there is boy, lad, and man.”

“Not comparable, Squire; continuously growing in one case, and in the other developmental surprises and, ever after, fall and rise of energy.  The general trouble about understanding women is that men judge them by some one well-known woman.  I heard a famous doctor say that no man need pretend to understand women unless he had been familiar with sick women.”

The Squire recalling the case of Ann Penhallow was silent.  The clergyman thinking too of his own bitter experience lapsed into contemplative cleaning of a much valued meerschaum pipe.  The Squire not given to morbid or other psychological studies made brief reply.  “I hope that Leila will remain half boy.”

“Too late, Squire—­too late.  You’ve got a woman on your hands.  There will be two heads to Grey Pine.”

“And may I ask where do I come in?” He was at times almost dull-witted, and yet in danger swift to think and quick to act.

Rivers filling the well-cleaned pipe looked up.  There was something of unwonted gaiety in the moving face-lines which frame the eyes and give to them the appearance of change of expression.  “My dear friend, you were as dough that is kneaded in the hands of Leila, the girl; you will be no less so now in the hands of this splendid young woman.”

“Oh, now—­by George!  Rivers, you must think me—­”

“Think you!  Oh, like other men.  And as concerns Mrs. Ann, there will sometimes be a firm alliance with Leila before which you will wilt—­or—­no, I will not venture further.”

“You had better not, or you may fail like other prophets.”

“No, I was thinking as you spoke of the fact that Leila has seen a good deal of a very interesting society in Baltimore, and has had the chance, and I am sure the desire, to hear more of the wild Southern party-talk than most girls have.”

“Yes, she has been in both camps.”

“And always was and is, I fancy, eagerly curious in the best sense.  More than my dear Mrs. Ann, she has wide intellectual sympathies—­and appetites.”

“That’s a very fine phrase, Mark.”

“Isn’t it, Squire?  I was also comparing in my mind John’s want of association with men of his own social accident of position.  He lived here with some rough country lads and with you and me.  He has had no such chance as Leila’s.”

“Oh, the Point will mature him.  Then two years on the Plains—­and after that the mills.”

“Perhaps—­two years!  But, Penhallow, who can dare to predict what God has in store for us.  Two years!”

“Yes—­too true—­who can!  Just now we are financially diseased, and men are thinking more of the bread and butter and debts of to-morrow than of Mr. Buchanan in the toils of his Southern Cabinet.”

“That’s so.  Good-night.”

Leila took upstairs with her John’s last letter to her aunt, and sitting down read it eagerly: