"Deserves! You don't think I've been waiting to find that out! Well, Sir, put it that way, I say, Yes, she does deserve it."
Dexter and young Swift, having spoken thus far, thought on in their several directions, with serious, steady, strong, far-reaching looks into the future.
Thus it was that Columbia Dexter took her place in the great school, where girls, it was said, were regarded and taught as responsible human beings.
Silas Swift looked so grave, whenever the families mentioned Dexter's resolution, that Columbia, who had made him repeat already many times his reflections and observations in the school-room that day when he and her father were employed in its decoration, said to him one morning, when they happened to be alone together,—
"I'm afraid you don't think well of what we're going to do."
Whereupon he, somewhat proudly for him, answered,—
"I told your father, when he asked me, what I thought, before he had made up his mind."
"What did you say?" she asked,—though she could have guessed correctly, had he insisted upon it, but Silas was not in the mood.
"I said it should be done," he answered, seriously.
"I should go to school?"