individual consciousness and life. But she had only Rast, and that was not the same thing. Rast always took the lead; and he had so many opinions of his own that there was no time to discuss, or even inquire about, hers. In the mean time young Pronando was growing into manhood at the rate of a year in a month. His handsome face, fine bearing, generous ways, and incessant activity both of limb and brain gave him a leader's place among the Western students, who studied well, were careless in dress and manner, spent their money, according to the Western fashion, like princes, and had a peculiar dry humor of their own, delivered with lantern-jawed solemnity. Young Pronando's preparation for college had been far better than that of most of his companions, owing to Dr. Gaston's care. The boy apprehended with great rapidity--apprehended perhaps more than he comprehended: he did not take the time to comprehend. He floated lightly down the stream of college life. His comrades liked him; the young Western professors, quick, unceremonious, practical men, were constantly running against little rocks which showed a better training than their own, and were therefore shy about finding fault with him; and the old president, an Eastern man, listened furtively to his Oxford pronunciation of Greek, and sighed in spite of himself and his large salary, hating the new bare white-painted flourishing institution over which he presided with a fresher hatred--the hatred of an exile. For there was not a tree on the college grounds: Young America always cuts down all his trees as a first step toward civilization; then, after an interregnum, when all the kings of the forest have been laid low, he sets out small saplings in whitewashed tree-boxes, and watches and tends them with fervor.