by those around us, and by the business world, never
more so than then. But poor Willing!

"Howard found it as we had feared. There were inconsistencies between
the debtor and creditor columns, increasing with each successive year;
and the effort had been made to cover them up by the alteration of
figures so as to appear square and correct. Howard knew too much of
prices to be deceived by these, being in the same business. The
aggregate stealings--for it was nothing else--amounted to $20,000! And
this was the payment the firm received for their liberal kindness and
their blind confidence!

"When all was discovered, and Willing's guilt clearly proved, he was
summoned to meet his injured employers. He must have gone with quakings
of heart: but not even then did his cool assurance fail him, or the
blush rise to his cheek, until he was made conscious that all his
trickery was understood, and that public exposure and the penitentiary
were before him. Then he gave way, and confessed all. He had not, in the
beginning, planned deliberate villany--very few ever do who have been
brought up to know the right. But the temptations to extravagance had
proved too much for him, and his principles, never strong, had given
way. He had taken two hundred dollars, intending to return it from his
salary, and none should be the wiser. But fast living is a deceitful
thing--almost as deceitful as the human heart. Bills came in fast--store
bills, butchers' bills, carriage bills, confectionery bills, milliners'
bills--swallowing up his quarter's salary; and one must have ready
money, you know; so instead of returning what he had taken, as hope had
whispered, he took more--still to be repaid in the future.

"I need hardly say, that each time he yielded to temptation the
resistance of his conscience became less and less, until finally it
appeared to be paralyzed. He had woven the toils about himself until he
seemed powerless to escape; no chrysalis, apparently lifeless in its
silky shroud, was feebler than he. He was strong to do evil but weak to
do good. Everything conspired to push him down hill--circumstances were
against him, he thought--but one thing was certain, he must have money,
and then all would be right.

"But how to break the meshes? How to retrieve himself? One way only was
clear to him--speculation in stocks, and on a margin; he could borrow
money for that, for he would be sure to repay. _Borrowing_ was now the
convenient name he