ed and ten pounds, the deuce take it!"

"I must give you the ninety-two pounds that I have put by for Alfred's
premium," said Mrs. Garth, gravely and decisively, though a nice ear
might have discerned a slight tremor in some of the words. "And I have
no doubt that Mary has twenty pounds saved from her salary by this
time. She will advance it."

Mrs. Garth had not again looked at Fred, and was not in the least
calculating what words she should use to cut him the most effectively.
Like the eccentric woman she was, she was at present absorbed in
considering what was to be done, and did not fancy that the end could
be better achieved by bitter remarks or explosions. But she had made
Fred feel for the first time something like the tooth of remorse.
Curiously enough, his pain in the affair beforehand had consisted
almost entirely in the sense that he must seem dishonorable, and sink
in the opinion of the Garths: he had not occupied himself with the
inconvenience and possible injury that his breach might occasion them,
for this exercise of the imagination on other people's needs is not
common with hopeful young gentlemen. Indeed we are most of us brought
up in the notion that the highest motive for not doing a wrong is
something irrespective of the beings who would suffer the wrong. But
at this moment he suddenly saw himself as a pitiful rascal who was
robbing two women of their savings.

"I shall certainly pay it all, Mrs. Garth--ultimately," he stammered
out.

"Yes, ultimately," said Mrs. Garth, who having a special dislike to
fine words on ugly occasions, could not now repress an epigram. "But
boys cannot well be apprenticed ultimately: they should be apprenticed
at fifteen." She had never been so little inclined to make excuses for
Fred.

"I was the most in the wrong, Susan," said Caleb. "Fred made sure of
finding the money. But I'd no business to be fingering bills. I
suppose you have looked all round and tried all honest means?" he
added, fixing his merciful gray eyes on Fred. Caleb was too delicate,
to specify Mr. Featherstone.

"Yes, I have tried everything--I really have. I should have had a
hundred and thirty pounds ready but for a misfortune with a horse which
I was about to sell. My uncle had given me eighty pounds, and I paid
away thirty with my old horse in order to get another which I was going
to sell for eighty or more--I meant to go without a horse--but now it
has turned out vicious and l