ve withdrawn again, for Mr. Lang came
quickly toward me.

"Sandy," he said, "this may not be exactly the time to discuss business
matters with you; but your friends seem to feel that you deserve a
better chance in the world. Mr. Bray, to whom I spoke yesterday, says
you were not bound to serve him after your eighteenth birthday, but that
you have never expressed a wish to leave. Don't you see what a foolish
fellow you are to work for him, when you might be earning for yourself?"

"But I have had no money to start with. I have had time for study, too,"
I stammered.

"Two reasons sufficient for an abstracted youth like you, but utterly
unpractical. I want you to hire a forge this side of Warren. I will
insure you custom enough to warrant the step."

He looked at me keenly as he spoke, while I colored with the pride and
indignation which, since his words to Miss Merton a few moments before,
I had been trying to control. Was this to be the end of all my hopes,
the object of Miss Darry's instructions, her flattering encouragements
and exaggerated estimate of my "genius," as she had termed it, that I
might have a forge of my own, to which I should be compelled to give
undivided attention, and shoe Mr. Lang's horses, and possibly some
others belonging to Miss Merton's visitors? Yet, remembering how much
had been already, if unwisely, done for me, I held down these thoughts,
and, after a momentary pause, professed my willingness to think the
matter over, if I could reserve time for other pursuits. His face
lighted up, then, with the smile which had charmed me at the forge.

"You are not spoiled yet, Sandy, I see. If you will only keep to your
trade, I will keep you to your art. You must have a boy at the forge,
and in the afternoons you can come here and paint under Mr. Leopold's
direction: he makes his home here during the summer, and he says you
have a talent worth cultivation."

The revulsion of feeling was as complete as he could have desired; and I
had not fully expressed my gratitude when Miss Darry appeared. I went
with her to bid Miss Merton good-evening, and she stood in the moonlight
beside me on the step, as Annie Bray had done a few hours before; but
now I also was a changed character.

"I am proud of my pupil, Sandy," she said, with more of her ordinary
manner than I had observed during the evening. "If I can place you in
better hands than mine, I shall be willing to give you up."

"Give me up? never!" I c