er had taught her, and held out her
white morsel of a hand to the boy. "How do you do?" she said,
prettily, though still a little shyly, for she was mindful how her
gingerbread had been refused, and might not this strange poor boy
also thrust the hand away with scorn? She said that, and looking
down, lest that black angry flash of his eyes startle her again, she
saw his poor broken shoes, and gave a soft little cry, then made a
pitiful lip, and stared hard at them with wide eyes full of
astonished compassion, for the shoes seemed to her much more forlorn
than bare feet.

Jerome's eyes followed hers, and he sprang up suddenly, his face
blazing, and made out that he did not see the proffered little hand.
"Pretty well," he returned, gruffly. Then he said to the Squire, with
no lack of daring now, "Can I see you alone, sir?"

The Squire stared at him a second, then his great chest heaved with
silent laughter and his yellow beard stirred as with a breeze of
mirth.

"You don't object to my daughter's presence?" he queried, his eyes
twinkling still, but with the formality with which he might have
addressed the minister.

Jerome scowled with important indignation. Nothing escaped him; he
saw that Squire Merritt was laughing at him. Again the pitiful
rebellion at his state of boyhood seized him. He would have torn out
of the room had it not been for his dire need. He looked straight at
the Squire, and nodded stubbornly.

Squire Merritt turned to his little daughter and laid a tenderly
heavy hand on her smooth curled head. "You'd better run away now and
see mother, Pretty," he said. "Father has some business to talk over
with this gentleman."

Little Lucina gave a bewildered look up in her father's face, then
another at Jerome, as if she fancied she had not heard aright, then
she went out obediently, like the good and gentle little girl that
she was.

When the door closed behind her, Jerome began at once. Somehow, that
other child's compassion in the midst of her comfort and security had
brought his courage up to the point of attack on fate.

"I want to ask you about the mortgage," said Jerome.

The Squire looked at him with quick interest. "The mortgage on your
father's place?"

"Yes, sir."

"Doctor Prescott holds it?"

"Yes, sir."

"How much is it?"

"A thousand dollars." Jerome said that with a gasp of horror and
admiration at the vastness of it. Sometimes to him that thousand
dollars almost represented