I find it necessary that the reader should understand how from childhood Morton had rather worshiped than loved Patty Lumsden. When the long spelling-class, at the close of school, counted off its numbers, to enable each scholar to remember his relative standing, Patty was always "one," and Morton "two." On one memorable occasion, when the all but infallible Patty misspelled a word, the all but infallible Morton, disliking to "turn her down," missed also, and went down with her. When she afterward regained her place, he took pains to stand always "next to head." Bulwer calls first love a great "purifier of youth," and, despite his fondness for hunting, horse-racing, gaming, and the other wild excitements that were prevalent among the young men of that day, Morton was kept from worse vices by his devotion to Patty, and by a certain ingrained manliness. Had he worshiped her less, he might long since have proposed to her, and thus have ended his suspense; but he had an awful sense of Patty's nobility? and of his own unworthiness. Moreover, there was a lion in the way. Morton trembled before the face of Captain Lumsden. Lumsden was one of the earliest settlers, and was by far the largest land-owner in the settlement. In that day of long credit, he had managed to place himself in such a way that he could make his power felt, directly or indirectly, by nearly every man within twenty miles of him. The very judges on the bench were in debt to him. On those rare occasions when he had been opposed, Captain Lumsden had struck so ruthlessly, and with such regardlessness of means or consequences, that he had become a terror to everybody. Two or three families had been compelled to leave the settlement by his vindictive persecutions, so that his name had come to carry a sort of royal authority. Morton Goodwin's father was but a small farmer on the hill, a man naturally unthrifty, who had lost the greater part of a considerable patrimony. How could Morton, therefore, make direct advances to so proud a girl as Patty, with the chances in favor of refusal by her, and the certainty of rejection by her father? Illusion is not the dreadfulest thing, but disillusion--Morton preferred to cherish his hopeless hope, living in vain expectation of some improbable change that should place him at better advantage in his addresses to Patty.