"Show me how!" the new student eagerly turned to him. Laying aside his own volume, a treatise on the calorific power of fuels--a brain-rasping subject which had been absorbing him since the coal fields were in prospect--he led the way into that spacious, mellow room, walled from floor to ceiling with shelves upon shelves of books. Dale stood transfixed. His head was thrown back and his hands were clenched, as though in very truth the secrets of this silent store-house were already creeping out to enter his attentive brain. Colonel May opened the clumsy dictionary, explaining it with a word the mountaineer had already learned to spell, and left him in this paradise of fancies. Some time later Uncle Zack opened the library door, announced dinner, and left unheard. A few minutes after this he returned, but again left unheard, and only when a hand pressed Dale's arm did the young man look up. The Colonel was smiling down at him. "Come, Sam Johnson. Dr. Jared Sparks, Ben Franklin, Davy Crockett, Abe Lincoln, and more such indomitable shades rolled into one! Man must eat; it is time for dinner!" "What does that mean?" he asked, leaning back in his chair. "Oh, Lord," the Colonel groaned. "I'll tell you another time. Come! You understand 'dinner,' I hope?" Entering the dining room Dale's mind was like a country pup walking stiff-legged into a crowd of city dogs, its hair belligerently on end and the tip of its tail wagging a friendly compromise. Not that he was at all defiant, and of course not afraid, but his whole mental attitude had become one of alert watchfulness, ready to spring this way or that, to follow this new custom or that new custom, and not intending to lag if the others made a move. So it was that when the Colonel held a chair back for Miss Liz, and Bob was seating Jane, Dale, who never in his life had seen anything of this sort, made a pretense of imitating them for the convenience of Ann;--and even though she were rudely jolted by the violence with which he shoved her into the table, her appreciative smile made him determine to do this thing forever. "How will you have your coffee, Mr. Dawson?" Miss Liz presently asked--for dinner at the Colonel's was of the farm variety which scorned the demitasse. "A mite of long sweetenin', please Ma'm," he answered to that lady's utter consternation. She laid down the tongs and stared at him.