As if the thought were disagreeable, he picked up the lantern abruptly, and went down under the mill, leaving me in the dark, and he remained so long that at last I followed. I found him leaning against a heavy timber, looking at the flame in his lantern again, as though it could enlighten him if it would on certain matters of which he was anxious to know more. “You are becoming as great a thinker as father, Jo,” I said, touching him on the shoulder, for he had been so occupied with his thoughts that he had not noticed my approach. “You used to dislike him very much for that.” Recollecting himself, he pretended that he had come down to look at something, and after seeing that it was all right, we went up again. “If I was thinking,” he said good-naturedly, “it was that I had never thought of loving until Mateel came in my way. The possibility that some day I should marry was so remote that I never considered it, and when you came down there just now, I was hoping that if ever I should marry Mateel--I don’t suppose I ever shall; it was only a fancy, and there is no harm in telling it--she would confess to me that thoughts of loving and marrying never came to her until she met me, as I intend to confess to her, and it will be God’s holy truth. I have never even divided my poor affection among my relatives; you have had it all, but I don’t think Mateel would object to that.” Although he had only been there a short time, I thought Jo had grown to be a man since I had seen him last. He looked larger, and older, and acted and talked more like one than he did two months before, when he was a boy. “I can understand why you love me,” he said, “because I have tried to win your regard, and we have been friends all our lives, but if Mateel cares for me, it is because there is more to me than Fairview has ever given me credit for. If that is not the case, then my ambition is hopeless, and if I have been thinking, it is about that. It is pleasant for me to know that, ignorant and rough as I am, intelligent people can admire me at all, for I am improving very rapidly, and in time I can hope to become worthy of the friendship of very good people. I am surprised to think how ignorant I was a month ago; I shall be in still greater wonder six months hence to realize how foolish I was when you first came to see me at the mill. I have no other hope for the future than that I can learn something every day, for if I live a long time I can hope to know something at last. It is not a great brain that can be exhausted at thirty, or even forty, and I expect to study very hard from now on, that I may catch up with others of equal capacity who began under more fortunate circumstances. I believe the day is coming when Fairview will be peopled with the kind of men and women I am acquainted with in my fancy; and when they arrive I am ambitious to be able to associate with them without the restraint of stupidity and ignorance.”