e they
might soon be reduced to penury.'"

"Benny Jeliffe, you may go on!"

During this break I stole my second look at her. The small head was
sweetly bent with an air of studious absorption--a head with two long
plaits of braided gold, a scarlet satin bow at the end of each.

It seems to me now that these bows were like the touch of frosted
woodbine in a yellowing elm, though at the moment I must have been
unequal to this fancy. I saw, too, the tiny chain that clasped her fair
throat, her dress of pale blue, and, most wonderful of all, two tassels
that danced from the tops of her trim little boots. The air was indeed
too heavy with beauty. But the reading lesson continued.

The years that stretch between that time and this have not bereaved me
of the knowledge that Mr. Barton graciously accommodated Hiram Strosser,
after vainly seeking to induce "Mr. Hawley, a wealthy merchant of Milk
Street," to share half the risk.

At this point a row of stars on the page indicated a lapse of ten years.
Mr. Barton, "pale and agitated," examines with deepening despair, "page
after page of his ponderous ledger." At last he exclaims, "I am ruined,
utterly ruined!" "How so?" inquires Hiram Strosser, who enters the room
just in time to hear the cry. Mr. Barton explains,--the failure of
Perleg, Jackson & Co. of London--news brought on last steamer--creditors
pressing him.

"'What amount would tide you over this crisis?' asks Hiram Strosser,
respectfully.

"'Seventy-five thousand dollars!'

"'Then, sir, you shall have it,' replied Hiram, and stepping to the desk
he drew a check for the full amount."

Nor can I ever forget the stroke of poetic justice with which the
anecdote concluded. Mr. Hawley of Milk Street was also embarrassed by
the failure of Perleg, Jackson & Co., but, for want of a trustful friend
in funds, was thrown into bankruptcy. Mr. Barton had the chastened
pleasure of telling Mr. Hawley about Hiram's loan, and of reminding him
that he had neglected a fair opportunity to become a co-benefactor of
that upright and open-handed youth; whereupon the ruined
Hawley--deservedly ruined, the tale implied--"moved on, dejected and
sad, while Mr. Barton returned to his establishment cheered and
animated."

The gross, the immoral romanticism of this tale was not then, of course,
apparent to me. Children are so defenceless! Child that I was, I
believed it would be entirely practicable for a lad in his teens to
borrow two tho