Desk and Debit

t it was a trick; that, if he was a poor man, Farringford would not trouble him. After this revelation my father refused to write again. He was sorely grieved and troubled, but he still had a sense of self-respect which would not permit him to grovel in the dust before any man.

I had worked at my trade two years in St. Louis, and considered myself competent to do all ordinary work in that line. But I worked very hard, for I was ambitious to do as much as a man. I was growing, and while I increased in height, I lost flesh, and was lighter in weight than when I had left the field and forest. My father thought I was working too hard, and Mrs. Greenough seconded the argument with all the force of a woman's influence. Still I think I should not have given up my trade then if my employer had not changed his business, thus compelling me to seek a new situation. I had been studying book-keeping for two years, using all my evenings in this and other studies. I practised it with my father, who was an accomplishe