ece. Those are nice girls of his, too; -- pretty girls. That
Rose is a pretty creature! -- I don't know but I like t'other
one as well in the long run though, -- come to know her."

"I do -- better," said Mrs. Landholm. "There is good in her."

"A sound stock, only grown a little too rank," said Winthrop.

"Yes, that's it. She's a little overtopping. Well, there will
come a drought by and by that will cure that."

"Why sir?" said Rufus.

"The odds are that way," said his father. "'Taint a stand-
still world, this; what's up to-day is down to-morrow. Mr.
Haye may hold his own, though; and I am sure I hope he will --
for his sake and her sake, both."

"He is a good business man, isn't he, sir?"

"There aint a better business man, I'll engage, than he is, in
the whole city of Mannahatta; and that numbers now, -- sixty
odd thousand, by the last census. He knows how to take care of
himself, as well as any man I ever saw."

"Then he bids fair to stand?"

"I don't believe anybody bids fairer. He was trying to make a
business man of you, wa'n't he, the other day?"

"He was saying something about it."

"Would you like that?"

"Not in the first place, sir."

"No. Ah well -- we'll see, -- we'll see," said Mr. Landholm
rising up; -- "we'll try and do the best we can."

What was that? A question much mooted, by different people and
in very different moods; but perhaps most anxiously and
carefully by the father and mother. And the end was, that he
would borrow money of somebody, -- say of Mr. Haye, -- and they
would let both the boys go that fall to College. If this were
not the best, it was the _only_ thing they could do; so it
seemed to them, and so they spoke of it. How the young men
were to be _kept_ at College, no mortal knew; the father and
mother did not; but the pressure of necessity and the strength
of will took and carried the whole burden. The boys must go;
they should go; and go they did.

In a strong yearning that the minds of their children should
not lack bread, in the self-denying love that would risk any
hardship to give it them, -- the father and mother found their
way plain if not easy before them. If his sons were to mount
to a higher scale of existence and fit themselves for nobler
work in life than he had done, his shoulders must thenceforth
bear a double burden; but they were willing to bear it. She
must lose, not only, the nurtured joys of her hearthstone, but
strain every long-strained n