In the evening Roger drove out in his carriage and returned on horseback.

“There’s the money you paid for the buggy, with interest,” he said to his father.

“You aren’t gone yet,” was the growling answer.

“No matter.  I shall not ride in it again, and you are not the loser.”

Roger had a rugged side to his nature which his father’s course often called out, and Mrs. Atwood made her husband feel, reluctant as he was to admit it, that he was taking the wrong course with his son.  A letter also from his brother in town led him to believe that Roger would probably come back in the spring well content to remain at home; so at last he gave a grudging consent.

Ungracious as it was, the young man rewarded him by a vigorous, thorough completion of the fall work, by painting the house and putting the place in better order than it had ever known before; meanwhile for his mother and sister he showed a consideration and gentleness which proved that he was much changed from his old self.

“I can see the hand of Mildred Jocelyn in everything he says and does,” Susan remarked one day after a long fit of musing, “and yet I don’t believe she cares a straw for him.”  Her intuition was correct; it was Roger’s ambition to become such a man as Mildred must respect in spite of herself, and it was also true that she was not merely indifferent, but for the reasons already given—­as far as she had reasons—­she positively disliked him.

Roger brought sufficient business from the country to prevent regretful second thoughts in the mind of his thrifty uncle, and the impression was made that the young fellow might steady down into a useful clerk; but when as much was hinted Roger frankly told him that he regarded business as a stepping-stone merely to the study of the law.  The old merchant eyed him askance, but made no response.  Occasionally the veteran of the market evinced a glimmer of enthusiasm over a prime article of butter, but anything so intangible as a young man’s ambitious dreams was looked upon with a very cynical eye.  Still he could not be a part of New York life and remain wholly sceptical in regard to the possibilities it offered to a young fellow of talent and large capacity for work.  He was a childless man, and if Roger had it in him to “climb the ladder,” as he expressed it to himself, “it might pay to give him the chance.”  But the power to climb would have to be proved almost to a demonstration.  In the meantime Roger, well watched and much mistrusted, was but a clerk in his store near Washington Market, and a student during all spare hours.