"I want to join the church," he said bluntly. The rector, a kindly, middle-aged man, with a love for children, turned to him in half-puzzled, half-sympathetic inquiry. "You are young, my child," he replied, "to be so zealous a Christian." "'Tain't that, sir," said the boy slowly. "I don't set much store by that. But I've got to go to heaven--because I can't see Thomas Jefferson no other way." The rector did not smile. He was wiser than his generation, for he left the great man's own religion to himself and God. He said merely: "When you are older we shall see, my boy--we shall see." Nicholas left with a chill of disappointment, but as he passed along the street his name was called by Juliet Burwell, and she fluttered across to him in all her mystifying flounces and her gracious smile. "I was at the rector's," she said, "and he told me that you wanted to be confirmed--and I want you to come into my Sunday-school class." Nicholas met the kind eyes and blushed purple. Her beauty took away his breath and made his pulses leap. The slow, musical drawl of her speech soothed him like the running of clear water. He felt the image of Thomas Jefferson totter upon its pedestal, but it was steadied with a tremendous lurch. Jefferson was a man, after all, and this was only a woman. "Will you come?" asked the soft voice, and he stammered an amazed and awkward assent. VIII On the Saturday after the day upon which Nicholas had pledged himself to attend Sunday-school Juliet Burwell asked him to come into Kingsborough and talk over the lesson for the following morning. At five o'clock in the afternoon he dressed himself with trembling hands and a perturbed heart; and for the first time in his life turned to look at his reflection in the small, cracked mirror hanging above the washstand in his stepmother's room. As a finishing touch Marthy Burr tied a flaming plaid cravat beneath his collar. "You ain't much on looks," she remarked as she drew back to survey him, "but you've got as peart a face as I ever seed. I reckon you'll be plenty handsome for a man. I was al'ays kind of set against one of these pink an' white men, somehow. They're pretty enough to look at when you're feelin' first-rate, but when you git the neuralgy they sort of turns yo' stomach. I've a taste for sober colours in men and caliky." "I think he looks beautiful," said Sairy Jane, her eyes on the cravat, and Nicholas felt a sudden glow of gratitude, and silently resolved to save up until he had enough money to buy her a hair ribbon.