"That was the first thing that occurred to father," answered Susan, "but Oliver told me last night while we were unpacking his books--he has a quantity of books and he kept them even when he had to sell his clothes--that he didn't see to save his life how he was going to stand it." "Stand what?" inquired Miss Priscilla, a trifle tartly, for after the vicissitudes of her life it was but natural that she should hesitate to regard so stable an institution as the Dinwiddie Bank as something to be "stood." "Why, I thought a young man couldn't do better than get a place in the bank. Jinny's father was telling me in the market last Saturday that he wanted his nephew John Henry to start right in there if they could find room for him." "Oh, of course, it's just what John Henry would like," said Virginia, speaking for the first time. "Then if it's good enough for John Henry, it's good enough for Oliver, I reckon," rejoined Miss Priscilla. "Anybody who has mixed with beggars oughtn't to turn up his nose at a respectable bank." "But he says it's because the bank is so respectable that he doesn't think he could stand it," answered Susan. Virginia, who had been looking with her rapt gaze down the deserted street, quivered at the words as if they had stabbed her. "But he wants to be a writer, Susan," she protested. "A great many very nice people are writers." "Then why doesn't he go about it in a proper way, if he isn't ashamed of it?" asked the teacher, and she added reflectively after a pause, "I wish he'd write a good history of the war--one that doesn't deal so much with the North. I've almost had to stop teaching United States history because there is hardly one written now that I would let come inside my doors." "He doesn't want to write histories," replied Susan. "Father suggested to him at supper last night that if he would try his hand at a history of Virginia, and be careful not to put in anything that might offend anybody, he could get it taught in every private school in the State. But he said he'd be shot first." "Perhaps he's a genius," said Virginia in a startled voice. "Geniuses are always different from other people, aren't they?" "I don't know," answered Susan doubtfully. "He talks of things I never heard of before, and he seems to think that they are the most important things in the world." "What things?" asked Virginia breathlessly. "Oh, I can't tell you because they are so new, but he seems on fire when he talks of them. He talks for hours about art and its service to humanity and about going down to the people and uplifting the masses." "I hope he doesn't mean the negroes," commented Miss Priscilla suspiciously.