“I don’t think it’s necessary,” said Kenton, haughtily, “There’s only one thing that could give him the right to know it, and we’ll wait for that first.  I thought you said that he was frivolous.”

“Boyne said that, and Lottie.  I took it for granted, till I talked with him to-day.  He is light-hearted and gay; he likes to laugh and joke; but he can be very serious when he wants to.”

“According to all precedent,” said the judge, glumly, “such a man ought to be hanging round Lottie.  Everybody was that amounted to anything in Tuskingum.”

“Oh, in Tuskingum!  And who were the men there that amounted to anything?  A lot of young lawyers, and two students of medicine, and some railroad clerks.  There wasn’t one that would compare with Mr. Breckon for a moment.”

“All the more reason why he can’t really care for Ellen.  Now see here, Sarah!  You know I don’t interfere with you and the children, but I’m afraid you’re in a craze about this young fellow.  He’s got these friends of his who have just turned up, and we’ll wait and see what he does with them.  I guess he appreciates the young lady as much as he does Ellen.”

Mrs. Kenton’s heart went down.  “She doesn’t compare with Ellen!” she piteously declared.

“That’s what we think.  He may think differently.”

Mrs. Kenton was silenced, but all the more she was determined to make sure that Mr. Breckon was not interested in Miss Rasmith in any measure or manner detrimental to Ellen.  As for Miss Rasmith herself, Mrs. Kenton would have had greater reason to be anxious about her behavior with Boyne than Mr. Breckon.  From the moment that the minister had made his two groups of friends acquainted, the young lady had fixed upon Boyne as that member of the Kenton group who could best repay a more intimate friendship.  She was polite to them all, but to Boyne she was flattering, and he was too little used to deference from ladies ten years his senior not to be very sensible of her worth in offering it.  To be unremittingly treated as a grown-up person was an experience so dazzling that his vision was blinded to any possibilities in the behavior that formed it; and before the day ended Boyne had possessed Miss Rasmith of all that it was important for any fellow-being to know of his character and history.  He opened his heart to eyes that had looked into others before his, less for the sake of exploiting than of informing himself.  In the rare intelligence of Miss Rasmith he had found that serious patience with his problems which no one else, not Ellen herself, had shown, and after trying her sincerity the greater part of the day he put it to the supreme test, one evening, with a book which he had been reading.  Boyne’s literature was largely entomological and zoological, but this was a work of fiction treating of the fortunes of a young American adventurer, who had turned his military education to account in the service of a German princess.