We sat for a long time thinking as the night came on. By and by Uncle Peabody began the hymn in which we joined: "Oh, keep my heart from sadness, God; Let not its sorrows stay, Nor shadows of the night erase The glories of the day." "Say--by thunder!--we don't have to set in the shadows. Le's fill the room with the glory of the day," said Uncle Peabody as he lighted the candles. "It ain't a good idee to go slidin' down hill in the summer-time an' in the dark, too. Le's have a game o' cards." I remember that we had three merry games and went to bed. All outward signs of our trouble had vanished in the glow of the candles. Next day I rode to the post-office and found there a book addressed to me in the handwriting of old Kate. It was David Hoffman's _Course of Legal Study_. She had written on its fly-leaf: "To Barton Baynes, from a friend." "That woman 'pears to like you purty thorough," said Uncle Peabody. "Well, let her if she wants to--poor thing!" Aunt Deel answered. "A woman has got to have somebody to like--ayes!--or I dunno how she'd live--I declare I don't--ayes!" "I like her, too," I said. "She's been a good friend to me." "She has, sart'n," my uncle agreed. We began reading the book that evening in the candle-light and soon finished it. I was thrilled by the ideal of human service with which the calling of the lawyer was therein lifted up and illuminated. After that I had no doubt of my way. That week a letter came to me from the Senator, announcing the day of Mrs. Wright's arrival in Canton and asking me to meet and assist her in getting the house to rights. I did so. She was a pleasant-faced, amiable woman and a most enterprising house cleaner. I remember that my first task was mending the wheelbarrow. "I don't know what Silas would do if he were to get home and find his wheelbarrow broken," said she. "It is almost an inseparable companion of his." The schoolmaster and his family were fishing and camping upon the river, and so I lived at the Senator's house with Mrs. Wright and her mother until he arrived. What a wonderful house it was, in my view! I was awed by its size and splendor, its soft carpets and shiny brass and mahogany. Yet it was very simple. I hoed the garden and cleaned its paths and mowed the dooryard and did some painting in the house. I remember that Mrs. Ebenezer Binks--wife of the deacon and the constable--came in while I was at the latter task early one morning to see if there were anything she could do.