Something--perhaps it was the familiar voice of White Star coming suddenly to her ear--brought back to Fidelia the remembrance of the time when she stood there petting the pretty creature, the day after her first return from the seminary--the day when Jabez came up to speak about the garden. It came back so vividly that when Jabez began to speak his first words were lost in the surprise which seized her when she turned towards him. What had happened to the lad since then? He was a boy no longer, for one thing. As he stood there regarding her with grave eyes, speaking quietly and earnestly, he was very different from the lad who had come whistling up the field, with his hoe over his shoulder, to greet her that day. A man? Well, hardly that yet; but with the promise of manhood on his good and pleasant face, to which, though she was tall herself, she had to look up now! A shadow passed over his face, and he ceased speaking and looked away, as a smile, of which she was quite unconscious, parted Fidelia's lips. "I thought maybe you would like to hear about it," said he in a little, without turning round. "Of course I shall like to hear about it. Excuse me; I was thinking about something else. You must begin again. Do you know, Jabez, that you are changed lately. You are not a boy any longer; you are a man, and I have only just found it out." "A man! No, not quite; but I mean to be a man one of these days," said Jabez gravely. "And I think now I can see my way." "Well! Tell me all about it." There was not much to tell, but it took some time to tell it. A letter had come from an uncle of Jabez--his mother's only brother--written in answer to one sent to him by Deacon Ainsworth, asking advice about the future career of his grandson. The uncle was a minister, living in the far West. He could do nothing for Jabez as to money, for he was a poor man, but he believed that he could better help the lad to help himself, in the part of the country where his home was, than could be done for him in New England. His own son, he said, with but little help from any one, had paid his way through college; and he did not doubt that Jabez, if he were the bright boy his grandfather described him to be, could do the same. "And so," said he, "you had better send him on. This is a good country for head-work and for handwork too--whichever he may prove himself best fitted for--and we shall all be glad to see him when he comes." "And," said Jabez gravely, "I think I'll go and have a try at it." "But surely your grandfather might help you a little? And Amhurst or Harvard is the right place for you, Jabez. Why do you wish to go so far away?"