Going out he met Young Master coming in. The young man saluted; the old man gave him a smile and a kindly nod and passed on. Bob spoke to me; said he was glad to see me improving so fast; he sat down and took up his book. He opened it at random, knowing it so well that any place offered an understandable beginning, but he did not read. He turned his eyes toward me and said: "You remember that about two months ago a gentleman named Potter bought the old Jamison place, over on the pike? Mother and I called on the family. And since then I have been over there a number of times, though I have said nothing about it to even you. All my life I have been gazing about to discover a sweet secret, and I think I've found one. Yes--and her name is Jane." At this he laughed, threw down his book, shoved his chair back and put his feet on the table. "The name is well enough, no doubt, but in this part of the country we usually associate it with a black wench, you know; and I was impudent enough to ask Mrs. Potter why she didn't call her Jenny, but she shut me up with, 'she was named for my mother and it is an honorable name, I'm sure.' And it is, too--it takes on bright colors as I associate it with her. But I never thought that I could be smitten with a girl named Jane. It struck me that they had nick-named a rose--said scat to a lily. Do you know what she did? Came over here to see you. Said she wanted to see a hero. I brought her up and she looked upon you as you lay here unconscious. As a usual thing, a boy is born in love--falls in love with his nurse if no one else is handy--but I have escaped pretty well. Oh, I did rather love the Webster girl, and I confess to breathing hard whenever Miss Flemming, the old maid school-teacher, came about; but I'm sure I never was knocked senseless with a perfumed slung-shot until I met Jane. Well, the name's all right; is like the finest music--takes you some time to discover its beauties. I told her that I was going to be a lawyer and she said that was charming; declared that she was coming to hear my first speech. I wish she would; I could shame Demosthenes." Not since he was a small boy had I heard him rattle on so, and it was a delight to me. Of late his over-manishness and his abstraction had told of too deep an absorption in his books, of an impatient ambition gnawing him, and this chaffy talk and the idle light of his countenance relieved a fear that had crept into my mind.