At this the sweet lady blushed like a girl, so confused was she at the reference, but pleased withal, I thought, at the compliment. Recovering herself directly, she answered in her pleasant way: "I was but a poor instructor, I fear, Gilbert, and taught you but little, and that not well. William and I have talked about it a great deal since the day you left us, for the ferry is not the same to us now that you are gone." "I will never again find friends who will be half as indulgent, and not all the money in the world would repay the debt I owe you and Mr. Hayward," I answered. "You taught me all I know, and with such forbearance and gentleness that I shall love you for it as long as I live," I went on, and yet not expressing the half I felt. For of all women I ever knew, save Constance and my dear mother, there was never one like her for goodness and every womanly virtue. Of Mr. Hayward, if he was different, he was not less kind-hearted and true to those near him. "About schools," I kept on, determined to have it out now that the subject was up, "I never liked them when a boy, and less so to-day than then. That is the way I feel, and except for the necessity of it I would never look in a book again unless it referred to something I liked. An education, though, I suppose, is as needful as plowing before a crop, and so I must go on and finish mine whether I like it or no." "You never liked to plow very well," Mr. Hayward responded, as if it fell to him to answer, "but still you went at it resolutely enough when there was need. You will do the same about finishing your education, I know. The labor ought not to be very great, for most men are overeducated. Nine-tenths of those who go to the higher schools had better spend their time boiling soap or hoeing corn. The few who are really great get along very well without so much cramming, and in the case of others the preparation only makes them the more dissatisfied with their real place in life," he concluded, soberly, and as if not speaking altogether from hearsay. "What studies do you like best, Gilbert, if any?" Mr. Seymour asked, as if quizzing me. "History and novels; things that have to do with men and women and the like," I answered, truly. "History is a fine study, and novels are a help to young men when they refer to real things and not the imaginings of authors," Mr. Seymour answered, mildly. "I once wrote a story," Mrs. Singleton here spoke up, much to our astonishment—"and you need not laugh. There were some beautiful things in it, too, I know; but on reading them over I became at last possessed of a horrible fear that I had seen them elsewhere, though I couldn’t be certain, and so in the end burned the manuscript."