"If I can arrange to leave you with Rolland for a few weeks," Uncle Job resumed, presently, "I will go home and take measures to put it out of the power of your aunt to molest you further. After that we will have clear sailing, and can do as we please." The prospect thus held out of being freed from Aunt Jane, now brought up afresh, served in some measure to reconcile me to what he said. Nevertheless, it made me feel very sad; but in the week that had elapsed since we left Wild Plum, now so far in the past, I had grown old, or had the semblance of it, and so spoke up with some cheerfulness. "I’ll be glad to stay if you think it is best, uncle. I must learn to be away from you sometime, and I might as well begin now, I suppose." "That is my brave little brother," he answered, with a click in his throat. "It is the best thing we can do, I am sure. No one will dream of looking for you there, and I will be only a few miles off, anyway. Rolland will be glad to have you come and stay with him, I know. You will like him, too, for he is the gentlest man in the world, and will treat you more like a companion than anything else. He never knows any distinctions as regards age, he is so simple in his ways." "I am sure I shall like him," I answered, anxious to put his mind at ease. "He is funny about some things," Uncle Job went on, "and microscopical, like many clerical men; but the lens through which he looks at the world is amber instead of ink, for there is no guile in him, nor crustiness of any kind." "Why do you say he’s microscopical?" I asked, not knowing what he meant. "Because of dealings with small things and of looking at them mostly through the point of a pen. The world with such men too often takes on the hue of the ink that fills their eyes, instead of the blue sky and shining sun." "I never thought of that," I replied. "It diminishes the perspective, you see, and so a drop of ink is oftentimes enough to hide or drown a dozen men. Rolland is not like that, though, and if he ever drowns anybody it will be in honey, so sweet is his nature." "Oh, I am sure I’ll like him; but what does he do?" I asked, now anxious to prolong the conversation. "He is a kind of land clerk, but his work does not take up all his time, and so he has a good deal of leisure. This, I am sorry to say, his habits sometimes lead him to misuse, but not often. Such things are common, though, here, and not much thought of; but in his case they keep him poor and prevent his rising in the world, as he would do otherwise." "Is his wife like him?" I asked at a venture, not knowing what to say next.