ere we might occasionally spend our leisure hours,
and call it home? Would it not at once have placed us in our own sphere,
and kept us from looking for social friends among strangers, of whose
character we know nothing? With the firm standing and position that Mr.
Delancey has here in society, to have taken this kindly notice of us
could not have lowered or affected him one particle in the social scale,
and would have placed us in that position which we have ever been
accustomed to occupy. It would have bound us more closely to him; and
instead of clerks, coldly and rigidly performing our assigned duties for
him, it would have rendered us his grateful and sincere friends, happy
to do aught in our power, either in or out of business hours, which
would oblige him or advance his interests. At least, I know this would
be the case with me, and I think that when I speak for one I do for
both."

"I must admit, Arthur, that you are right. Though I have not quite as
impulsive a heart as yourself, and am not nearly as proud-spirited, I
cannot always bear meekly the curtness and harshness with which Mr.
Delancey treats us. And with clerks, as a general thing, it is certainly
more for an employer's interest to win them as closely as possible to
himself; for, of course, if he forces them to seek companionship among
whomsoever they may meet, and they fall into low and dissipated habits,
which renders them unfit for business, then, of a necessity, that
interest suffers; and were I the employer in such a case, I am sure I
could not hold myself entirely free from blame."

"Oh, in such a case, the employer thinks no farther than to give a clerk
his walking papers, and to show him the door. They never pause to
remember that they were probably the primal cause of his downfall;
neither will they make amends, by even giving him the good name he
brought to them, for another situation. When I reflect upon these
things, Guly, sometimes there's a great deal of bitterness comes up in
my heart, which I cannot keep down, though I try ever so hard."

"Never let it rise there, Arthur. While we both live, dear brother, we
are certain of one heart that is as true as life itself. Let us cling
close to one another, and try and be happy and contented together, and
no harm, save sickness and death, can approach us. In loving one
another, we are but being true to ourselves."

They had by this time reached the store door, and as Guly ceased
speaking, Ar