eceive payment.

"You've made a mistake in your bill, Mr. Lee," said Clinton.

"Ah? Are you certain?"

"You can examine for yourself. I find an error of twenty dollars in the
additions."

"Then you only owe me sixty dollars?" said Lee, with a disappointment in
his tones that he could not conceal.

"Rather say that I owe you a hundred, for the mistake is in your favour.
The first column in the bill adds up fifty, instead of thirty dollars."

"Let me examine it." Lee took the bill, and added up the column three
times before he felt entirely satisfied. Then he said,

"So it does! Well, I should never have been the wiser if you had only
paid me the eighty dollars called for by the bill. You might have
retained your advantage with perfect safety."

Lee said this on the impulse of the moment. He instantly saw a change in
Mr. Clinton's countenance, as if he were slightly offended.

"Oh, no; not with safety," was gravely replied.

"I never should have found it out."

"But there is coming a day, with every man, when the secrets of his
heart will stand revealed. If not now, it would then appear that I had
wronged you out of twenty dollars."

"True! true! But all men don't think of this."

"No one is more fully aware of that than I am. It is for me, however, to
live in the present so as not to burden my future with shame and
repentance. Knowingly, Mr. Lee, I would not wrong any man out of a
single dollar. I may err, and do err, like other men; for, to err is
human."

After the expression of such sentiments, Lee felt curious to know what
Mr. Clinton thought of, and how he felt towards Maxwell. So he said,
after referring to the new mill-dam in the process of erection--

"You didn't take the lowest bid for its construction."

"I took the lowest competent bid."

"Then you do not think Maxwell competent to do the work?"

"I do not think him a man to be trusted, and, therefore, would not have
given him the contract for such a piece of work at any price. You are
aware that the giving way of that dam would almost inevitably involve a
serious loss of life and property among the poor people who live along
the course of the stream below. I must regard their safety before any
pecuniary advantage to myself; and have given Mr. Jackson, who has the
contract, positive instructions to exceed his estimates, if necessary,
in order to put the question of safety beyond a doubt. I know him to be
a man whom I can trust. But I have