“Well, I received an answer to it a day or two after coming here, accompanied by an invitation to visit her, and I don’t mind confessing to you that I went, as I had learned a great deal since I called there the first time with your mother, and was anxious she should know it. In fact, I have been there three times in three weeks. It’s only a short distance to their house from here, and Barker gave me so many lessons in bowing and politeness that I couldn’t resist the temptation to try them.” “And how did they work?” “Oh, I forgot everything as soon as I got into the house, of course,” he answered wearily, as though he were dreadfully slow in learning to be polite. “She came up to me, and stood so close that I hadn’t room to bow. When her mother came in, she shook hands, and I couldn’t have bowed to her without pushing over my chair. It was a total failure, though I am improving. I take off my hat now before going in at the gate. I am under contract to go there to-morrow night, and you shall accompany me. I have a new suit of clothes, too. They arrived a few days after I came here; I asked Barker who sent them, and he said he supposed it must have been God. “Jo,” I said, “you are very happy here, I can see it already.” “I confess that I am,” he replied; “more contented than I ever expected to be anywhere. I am useful to Barker (so he is kind enough to say, at least), and he told me to-day that he intends to pay me wages from the time I came, instead of compelling me to work a long while for nothing. Yes, I am very happy here; you have guessed my secret.” I was heartily glad of it, and said so, and added that no one deserved it more. “But after all there is nothing like a fairy story in it; nothing unreal, and nothing that is likely to melt away, and leave me a drudge at Fairview again. I am simply in a place where, if I work hard, I shall get something for it. Every one ought to have that opportunity, therefore it is not too much to hope that my good fortune may continue. I should have been as comfortably situated as I am now a good many years ago (no one is so unworthy that he does not deserve pay for what work he does well), but I have learned nothing, and earned nothing, until now, though I am almost a man grown.” Jo had been a full hand on the farm for several years, but he never received anything for it, except complaints, and I understood what he meant.