“I take it that people do not come west for society, but rather because there are more acres than people in this direction,” Barker said. “I have been told that it is possible to get too much of society, and that after it quiet is appreciated. To this class Fairview will prove a satisfactory place. My nearest neighbor lives two miles away; I shouldn’t care if he lived ten. He is an ignorant fellow, who chops wood for a living; and he is very considerate, for he never comes to see me. I think I never spoke to my neighbor except to ask him how much was my debt. We get along very well. Who is the young man at the window?” noticing Bragg, who had changed his position and was looking at the sky. I replied that he was a friend of Mr. Shepherd’s, and that he had only arrived a few days before. “He looks as though he was in jail for murder, and meditating an escape in order to commit the same offence with greater atrocity. What is the matter with him?” I was afraid that this might offend Mateel, but after seeing that Bragg had not heard it she laughed over it, as did the rest of us. She added, however, that he was in excellent health, and that he was more moody than sullen, and could be very agreeable when he wanted to be. “I judge he has had too much of society, and enjoys the quiet of Fairview. He looks pleasant.” I will swear that Bragg’s face was the most unpleasant and disagreeable at that moment I had ever seen. “He should visit the mill for quiet. We have no noise there except the roar of the water and the rumble of the wheels, and we have grown so accustomed to these that it would not be quiet without them. I hope he will like the country.” At this moment my father and Mr. Shepherd came around from the orchard, and Barker bowed low on being presented. I thought Mr. Shepherd regretted he had not known Barker was so polite, as he could have shown something in that line himself; but they got on very well together, and were soon talking like old friends. We sat there for an hour or more, listening to their easy and cultured conversation, and it occurred to me, with renewed force, that Fairview was getting out of its old ways. Mr. Shepherd promised to visit him, the invitation having been extended, and my mother and the minister’s wife coming out later the party was so agreeable that I wondered we could not have more of it instead of the discontent which usually oppressed us. Hearing our peals of laughter, I hoped Bragg regretted he had not been in better humor and joined the company; but he never looked that way, and pretended to be occupied with himself. “You have never been inside of Fairview church, Damon,” my father said to him, quite familiarly, late in the afternoon; “won’t you come to-night?” “I will walk on with Ned,” Barker replied, good-naturedly, and rising, “and think of it after I reach the cross roads; I see it is almost time to start.”