did your united wisdom arrive at?" Nelly laughed.

"We thought you might do here at dressmaking," Jack said, "after a bit,
you know."

"The thought was not a bad one," she said; "it never occurred to me, and
had this great good fortune not have come to me I might perhaps have
tried. It was good of you to think of it. And so you never heard a
whisper about the schoolmistress? I thought you might perhaps have
suggested it somehow, you know you always do suggest things here."

"No, indeed, Nelly, I did not hear Miss Bolton was going."

"I am glad," the girl said.

"Are you?" Jack replied in surprise. "Why, Nelly, wouldn't you have
liked me to have helped you?"

"Yes and no, Jack; but no more than yes. I do owe everything to you. It
was you who made me your friend, you who taught me, you who urged me on,
you who have made me what I am. No, Jack, dear," she said, seeing that
Jack looked pained at her thanks; "I have never thanked you before, and
I must do it now. I owe everything to you, and in one way I should have
been pleased to owe this to you also, but in another way I am pleased
not to do so because my gaining it by, if I may say so, my own merits,
show that I have done my best to prove worthy of your kindness and
friendship."

Tears of earnestness stood in her eyes, and Jack felt that disclaimer
would be ungracious.

"I am glad," he said again after a pause. "And now, Miss Hardy," and he
touched his hat laughing, "that you have risen in the world, I hope you
are not going to take airs upon yourself."

Nelly laughed. "It is strange," she said, "that I should be the first to
take a step upwards, for Mrs. Dodgson is going to help me to go in and
qualify for a head-schoolmistress-ship some day; but, Jack, it is only
for a little time. You laugh and call me Miss Hardy to-day, but the time
will come when I shall say 'sir' to you; you are longer beginning, but
you will rise far higher; but we shall always be friends; shall we not,
Jack?"

"Always, Nelly," Jack said earnestly. "Wherever or whatever Jack Simpson
may be, he will ever be your true and faithful friend, and nothing which
may ever happen to me, no rise I may ever make, will give me the
pleasure which this good fortune which has befallen you has done. If I
ever rise it will make me happy to help Harry, but I know you would
never have let me help you, and this thought would have marred my life.
Now that I see you in a position in which I am sure you will