When Judge Leslie learned that Hiram Otis's law library had been moved out to Lumalitas he suggested that Gwynne should read at home until he had mastered the laws governing the State of California, and the student was far better satisfied out there in the quiet and the fresh air of his veranda. When a point needed expounding, a horseback ride into Rosewater was not an unwelcome diversion. His will had triumphed in its first bout with memory, so subtly liberated by the written word, and before three days of close study had passed he had the sensation of having found a new and individual patch upon which squarely to plant his feet. The future seemed more definite, more assured; moreover, his avid brain, its energies too long in abeyance, settled upon the new and absorbing study--it was eight years since he had opened a law-book, although he had forgotten little he had read at that plastic time--like a swarm of locusts. He recalled that a clever woman had once said in his hearing that whenever she felt blasee she took up a new language, and at once felt young and eager again. The remark had passed him by at the time, but he recalled it as he devoured and stored away the statutes that in many ways differentiated California from the other States of the Union. The mere fact that his was not the order of brain that took kindly to monotonous application, but inspired him with the more ardent desire to conquer; the sense of being on any sort of a battle-field again gave a color to life. He realized that in six months more of inaction he should have fallen into a constant and morbid habit of self-analysis, and although his soul-sickness could not be healed in a moment, the sense of danger gave an added zest to the impersonal nature of his studies. He subscribed for all the San Francisco newspapers and for those of his own and the adjoining counties. He was not conscious of any mounting love for California, but here his lines were cast, and California was as good a stepping-stone as another. If her politics were hideous he had not made them, and his reviving faith in his star suggested that he may have been born to redeem them. With the polishing up of the rustier parts of his mind even his eyes grew brighter, he moved more quickly, he began to feel all intellect once more, propelled by a body that was daily gaining in red and vigorous blood. Judge Leslie was so delighted with his rapid progress and his exceptionally retentive and classifying memory that he assured everybody he met in Rosewater and St. Peter that he was training a second Alexander Hamilton for the bar of the United States. XVII