“I think a man ought to go away to college,” she declared, in what seemed another tone.  “He makes friends, learns certain things,—­it gives him finish.  We are very provincial here.”

Provincial!  I did not stop to reflect how recently she must have acquired the word; it summed up precisely the self-estimate at which I had arrived.  The sting went deep.  Before I could think of an effective reply Nancy was being carried off by the young man from the East, who was clearly infatuated.  He was not provincial.  She smiled back at me brightly over his shoulder....  In that instant were fused in one resolution all the discordant elements within me of aspiration and discontent.  It was not so much that I would show Nancy what I intended to do—­I would show myself; and I felt a sudden elation, and accession of power that enabled me momentarily to despise the puppets with whom she danced....  From this mood I was awakened with a start to feel a hand on my shoulder, and I turned to confront her father, McAlery Willett; a gregarious, easygoing, pleasure-loving gentleman who made only a pretence of business, having inherited an ample fortune from his father, unique among his generation in our city in that he paid some attention to fashion in his dress; good living was already beginning to affect his figure.  His mellow voice had a way of breaking an octave.

“Don’t worry, my boy,” he said.  “You stick to business.  These college fellows are cocks of the walk just now, but some day you’ll be able to snap your fingers at all of ’em.”

The next day was dark, overcast, smoky, damp-the soft, unwholesome dampness that follows a spell of hard frost.  I spent the morning and afternoon on the gloomy third floor of Breck and Company, making a list of the stock.  I remember the place as though I had just stepped out of it, the freight elevator at the back, the dusty, iron columns, the continuous piles of cases and bags and barrels with narrow aisles between them; the dirty windows, spotted and soot-streaked, that looked down on Second Street.  I was determined now to escape from all this, and I had my plan in mind.

No sooner had I swallowed my supper that evening than I set out at a swift pace for a modest residence district ten blocks away, coming to a little frame house set back in a yard,—­one of those houses in which the ringing of the front door-bell produces the greatest commotion; children’s voices were excitedly raised and then hushed.  After a brief silence the door was opened by a pleasant-faced, brown-bearded man, who stood staring at me in surprise.  His hair was rumpled, he wore an old house coat with a hole in the elbow, and with one finger he kept his place in the book which he held in his hand.

“Hugh Paret!” he exclaimed.

He ushered me into a little parlour lighted by two lamps, that bore every evidence of having been recently vacated.  Its features somehow bespoke a struggle for existence; as though its occupants had worried much and loved much.  It was a room best described by the word “home”—­home made more precious by a certain precariousness.  Toys and school-books strewed the floor, a sewing-bag and apron lay across the sofa, and in one corner was a roll-topped desk of varnished oak.  The seats of the chairs were comfortably depressed.