I saw the young man at
the store. If his looks don't belie him, he's well-behaved and
orderly."
So it was settled that Richard Hilton the younger was to be an
inmate of Friend Mitchenor's house during the summer.
II.
At the end of ten days he came.
In the under-sized, earnest, dark-haired and dark-eyed young man of
three-and-twenty, Abigail Mitchenor at once felt a motherly
interest. Having received him as a temporary member of the family,
she considered him entitled to the same watchful care as if he were
in reality an invalid son. The ice over an hereditary Quaker
nature is but a thin crust, if one knows how to break it; and in
Richard Hilton's case, it was already broken before his
arrival. His only embarrassment, in fact, arose from the
difficulty which he naturally experienced in adapting himself to
the speech and address of the Mitchenor family. The greetings of
old Eli, grave, yet kindly, of Abigail, quaintly familiar and
tender, of Moses, cordial and slightly condescending, and finally
of Asenath, simple and natural to a degree which impressed him like
a new revelation in woman, at once indicated to him his position
among them.
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