anny gazed sharply at him across the supper-table. Finally
she laid down her knife and fork, rested her elbows on the table,
and fixed her eyes commandingly upon him. "Andrew Brewster, what is
the matter?" said she. Ellen turned her flower-like face towards her
father, who took a swallow of tea without saying a word, though he
shuffled his feet uneasily. "Andrew, you answer me," repeated Fanny.

"There ain't anything the matter," answered Andrew, with a strange
sullenness for him.

"There is, too. Now, Andrew Brewster, I ain't goin' to be put off. I
know you're on the shelf on account of hard times, so it ain't that.
It's something new. Now I want to know what it is."

"It ain't anything."

"Yes, it is. Andrew, you ought to tell me. You know I ain't afraid
to bear anything that you have to bear, and Ellen is getting old
enough now, so she can understand, and she can't always be spared.
She'd better get a little knowledge of hardships while she has us to
help her bear 'em."

"This ain't a hardship, and there ain't anything to spare, Ellen,"
said Andrew; and he laughed with a hilarity totally unlike him.

That was all Fanny could get out of him, but she was half reassured.
She told Eva that she didn't believe but he had been buying some
Christmas present that he knew was extravagant for Ellen, and was
afraid to tell her because he knew she would scold. But Andrew had
not been buying Christmas presents, but speculating in mining
stocks. He had resisted the temptation long. Year in and year out he
had heard the talk right and left in the shop, on the street, and at
the store of an evening. "I'll give you a point," he had heard one
say to another during a discussion as to prices and dividends. He
had heard it all described as a short cross-cut over the fields of
hard labor to wealth and comfort, and he had kept his face straight
ahead in his narrow track of caution and hereditary instincts until
then. "The savings bank is good enough for me," he used to say;
"that's where my father kept his money. I don't know anything about
your stocks. I'd rather have a little and have it safe." The men
could not reason him out of his position, not even when Billy Monroe
made fifteen hundred dollars on a Colorado mine which had cost him
fifteen cents per share, and left the shop, and drove a fast horse
in a Goddard buggy.

It was even reported that fifteen hundred was fifteen thousand, but
Andrew was proof against this brilliant