him outside the bounds reached by his father. The scope and class of his reading often troubled his mother sorely. One day she had gone to Griffith in dismay. It was so seldom that she felt obliged to criticise this eldest son of hers, upon whom she looked with a pride almost beyond words to express, that Griffith was astonished. "I wish, Griffith, that you would tell Beverly not to read this book. It is the second time I have told him and he is determined. I burned the first copy and he has bought another. He says he will buy fifty if I burn them before he has read it all. He is that determined to read it. I hated to tell you, but------" Griffith held out his hand for the obnoxious book. Then he exclaimed in surprise: "The 'Age of Reason'! Paine's book! Where did he happen to get that?" He looked over the title page. "I see, I see! 'Rights of Man'--he quoted from that in his last essay at college. It was good, too--excellent. I've never read either one, but--oh, tut, tut, mother, why not let him read it? I wouldn't wony over it. Beverly is all right. He has got a better mind than you have--a far better one than I have--why not let him use it? Let him read anything he wants to. We can't judge for him. He'll be all right anyhow. You know that. He and I differ in politics now. He is going the radical road and I'm staying by the old line whigs; but--oh, tut, tut, Katherine! let's not hamper the boy's mind with our notions to the extent of forcing them on him. It won't do a bit of good if we try it either. That's not the kind of a mind Beverly has got--and suppose it was, what right have we to warp and limit its action?" He was turning over the leaves. "I've never read this myself." Then looking up suddenly: "Have you?" "No, of course not! But my father forbade our boys reading it. He said it was a fearful book--infidel--" She broke off, but stammered something about Beverly's salvation. Griffith drew her down on his knee.