to me some day!"

"Not so bad as that, Gregory, I hope," Mr. Murray said, entering the
room; he had been standing in the doorway unnoticed for some minutes,
and overheard a good deal of the conversation. "Your nephew is not
going to disgrace you, because he did what was clearly his duty in a
very clever way. Cheer up, Bertie; your uncle will have a better
opinion of you presently."

For answer, Bertie hid his face amongst the circulars on his desk,
and burst into a passionate fit of crying, none the less bitter
because his uncle sternly commanded him to be quiet, and carry a note
to a gentleman in Threadneedle Street, and wait for an answer.
Meanwhile Mr. Murray sat down, as if he meant to have a long
conversation with Mr. Gregory, who looked as if he most cordially
wished his visitor sixty miles away, as he thought him in reality to
be, before he had heard Bertie's curious story.

CHAPTER XIV.--BERTIE IN DIFFICULTIES.

When he left the office on his uncle's errand, Bertie Rivers felt
very miserable. For a minute he seemed almost stunned by his uncle's
words, "A disgrace!" Was it possible that merely doing right ever
could bring disgrace to anybody? if so, what was the good of doing
right at all? But then, Mr. Murray had commended him, had said right
always helped the largest number of people, though one might
sometimes suffer; but even in a good cause to be called artful,
designing, to be suspected of trying to make friends with Mr. Murray,
and leading his uncle to suppose that he did not want to even accept
his invitation, was too bitterly hard, and for the first time in his
life Bertie felt as if he must throw himself down by the wayside, and
sob his sorrow out to some one.

"Oh, if I could only see Aunt Amy!" he said aloud as he toiled up the
stairs to the address on the note in his hand. "If I could only tell
her all!" and then, as the gentleman was out and he was desired to
wait, he sat on a form on the landing, and while seeming to watch the
never-ending crowd of passers-by in Threadneedle Street, he was
really thinking, "I must see my Aunt Amy. I must, _I must, I must_!"

The passing cabs attuned themselves to the words, the newspaper-boys,
crying "Evening Paper, fourth edition," the flower-sellers, the
sellers of mechanical toys, revolving purses, performing mice, and
other living and dead monstrosities that haunt the vicinity of the
Stock Exchange and Bank, all seemed to "cry" the same thing to
Bert