Mrs. Garman believed firmly that it was most desirable, as a cure for self-will, that a young man should battle against his inclinations; nothing could be more baneful than pampering the flesh. No help, then, was to be expected from any quarter.
Gabriel was sauntering down the alley, quite crest-fallen under his heavy burden of books, when at some distance his eye caught sight of some one on horse-back, whom he soon recognized, and who was coming along the road behind the farm. It was Uncle Richard on Don Juan.
Gabriel started off at once, forgetting in a moment his heavy burden of books and care, and thinking only on the merriment and good cheer which Uncle Richard always brought with him. He determined to hasten off to the kitchen to tell Miss Cordsen, and then to go in to his father; for Gabriel knew well that the bearer of the news of his uncle's arrival was always welcome.
"Lord save us!" cried Miss Cordsen. "Make up the fire, Martha;" and off she ran to get a clean cap.
"All right, my boy!" said Consul Garman, giving Gabriel a friendly nod.
Gabriel was well pleased at the effect of his intelligence. He had actually surprised Miss Cordsen into an impropriety, in which he seldom succeeded; and his father, who was generally undemonstrative, had greeted him with more than usual warmth.
The young Consul, as he was generally called from the time when his father, the old Consul, was alive, was not so tall as his younger brother, and
