“Lor sakes! Massa Dan, who gived ye such trash?” and bustling about she made him sit down, while she placed before him every delicacy she could lay her hands on. Susie, meanwhile, went on with her work quite unconscious of his presence, Dinah thought; but Mrs. Forest, coming in soon after, did not fail to notice the flush on Susie’s face, and to attribute it to Dan’s presence; so when he would not bring his peddler’s cart around to the barn, out of sight of prying eyes, nor stay even an hour longer, she did not press him much. Clearly he was better away, now that Susie Dykes was a fixture in the family, but she insisted upon his giving her a private interview after the doctor had been called away to his patients. She talked to him of religion, of duty, urged him to give up this peddling as unworthy of his talents, and above all things to avoid low connections. Not one word did she utter directly of that which lay nearest her heart, though Dan knew well what she meant by low connections. In brief, he was bored by his mother’s “preaching,” though he listened passively enough, but felt infinitely relieved when he mounted his cart and drove off, covertly throwing a kiss to Susie, who was watching him by the curtain edge of an upper window. In fact, Dan had never led so free and easy a life before, and his adventures furnished matter to delight Susie’s heart; for under an assumed name he wrote her very constantly for a long time. After a while he gave up peddling, and became a brakeman on a railroad. This for a time filled his ambition, like a goblet, to the brim. But his income was decidedly small, and would never permit him to put enough by to marry Susie and run away with her, a feat he had long desired to accomplish. Clearly New England was a slow place for making money, when a fellow had nothing to commence on. If he only had this something to start with, he would succeed in any kind of mercantile operation. He had a talent for business. He had proved it by a successful enterprise when he was ten years old. This enterprise was the buying of some young ducks with money that the doctor had given him. They grew and flourished on corn and other food that cost Dan nothing, and when they were ready for market, he sold them to his mother at a high price, and ate them himself! This operation had often been quoted by the doctor to dampen Dan’s ardor when he wanted money to commence business for himself. The doctor knew the volatile nature of his boy, and that he would not succeed unless conditions were about as favorable as in the duck enterprise. Still the good doctor had done much for Dan, being willing to buy him all the experience he could possibly afford, and he regretted that this was so little; but he must, as he told Dan, look out for his girls; boys could rough it, and learn prudence and forecast by experience. This was on the occasion of Dan’s next visit home, when he was wild with the desire to