“I have a few books about the house,” Barker said. “Jo devours them, and keeps me up far into every night answering questions. Next to his ambition to learn all there is about the mill he is ambitious to know all there is in the books. I think he will succeed in both particulars; I was not mistaken in my estimate of him.” We were all pleased to hear him say this, and, though not intending it, Mateel let it be known that she was greatly interested in Jo. I hoped Barker would notice it, and tell him, for it would be a pleasure for him to know it. “A boy apprenticed on a farm has very little opportunity to learn anything--I wonder that he knows as much as he does; but he is progressive and manly, and I am very much mistaken if his advancement is not very rapid from now on. He wants to know about everything, and I really believe he could run the mill very well without me now. He was familiar with every part of it before he came there to live, and I suppose he is busy to-day taking the machinery apart to look at it, since I am not there to answer his questions regarding the contents of the books.” Barker seemed to understand that Jo had never been appreciated in Fairview, and was determined that the people should know he was very favorably impressed with him. I thought it was very kind of him to come so far to defend Jo. “A young man ready to take advantage of every opportunity is rare enough to be remarkable,” Barker continued, observing Mateel very closely. “They usually have to be driven to it, and encouraged to keep at it by all sorts of stratagems, but Jo only asks opportunity, and goes at his work with an energy I greatly admire. I have known hundreds of men who knew less at middle age than Jo knows at seventeen, and who were not his equals in whatever he attempts. This seems to have been against him here, but it will be to his advantage in his new place. But I believe I have not yet asked how you liked Fairview,” he abruptly concluded, addressing Mateel. She replied very much as a polite woman should--that while it was not possible that she could positively say on so short an acquaintance, she believed she would become entirely content with it in time. “I have lived here contentedly enough a good many years,” Barker replied, “with few acquaintances and fewer friends. The country is very fair. I know little enough of the people, but no one is crowded here. There is room enough for everybody, and there are splendid opportunities to be let alone. There is a good deal in that.” In her dependent, uncertain way, Mateel looked as though it were possible to be let alone too much, although she said nothing.