'I wish you would let me be serious with you sometimes, Miss Jakes; you'd see I'd quite redeem myself in your eyes.' 'Redeem yourself?
From what ?' 'Oh! from all your impression of my frivolity and folly.

I can talk about art and literature and the condition of the labouring classes as wisely as anybody, I assure you.' He said it so prettily that Althea had to laugh.

'But what makes you think I can ?' she asked, and, delighted with the happy result of his appeal, he said that Helen had told him all about her wisdoms.
He sounded these wisdoms next day when he asked her to walk with him to the village.

He told her, as they walked, of the various projects for using his life to some advantage that he had used to make--projects for improved agricultural methods and the bettering of the conditions of life in the country.

Althea had read a great deal of political economy.
She had, indeed, ground at it and mastered it in the manner advised by Franklin to Helen.