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. His city manners, he felt, instinctively, must be unlearned, or
at least laid aside for a time.
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