which he had found himself placed; but beyond one or two strong friendships for men who had been his playmates at school, he had not added to his list of affections since he was a little boy. He had never been in love, though he had often thought very sensibly about being married, and had done his share of taking the Deerway girls on sleigh-rides, and home from singing-schools in the winter; but he did it partly as one of the duties of a good citizen of the town, and partly from a quiet sort of good-fellowship, which would have walked or ridden almost as contentedly with a young man as with a young woman, if so the customs of young people had decreed. He was not without his preferences among the Deerway young women, but he had also his preferences among the Deerway young men; and he could have given as clear and satisfactory reasons for them in the one case as in the other, unless, perhaps, in the case of a little girl named Molly Wilder, whose mother was a widow, and took summer boarders in Deerway. They were very poor, and had lived on one of the Bassett farms ever since John could remember; and one of the earliest things he recollected was hearing his father say to his mother,—
"Well, Sam Wilder 'll never earn his salt in this world, but I sha'n't turn him out o' that farm 's long 's Molly lives. She 's no kind of a woman to be left without a house over her head."
At last Sam Wilder died of a disease so linger-
