ld pretty hard myself, and I like to help those
that are fighting it. Good evening. Isn't that your son coming round the
corner? Well, he's back exact to his time, at any rate. Tell him I hope
he will be as punctual on Monday morning. Good evening, ma'am."

Now, if this were an imaginary story, I might wind it up by a delightful
denoument of Mr. Bethune's turning out an old friend of the family, or
developing into a new one, and taking such a fancy to Donald that he
immediately gave him a clerkship with a large salary, and the promise
of a partnership on coming of age, or this worthy gentleman should be
an eccentric old bachelor who immediately adopted that wonderful boy and
befriended the whole Boyd family.

But neither of these things, nor anything else remarkable, happened in
the real story, which, as it is literally true, though told with certain
necessary disguises, I prefer to keep to as closely as I can. Such
astonishing bits of "luck" do not happen in real life, or happen so
rarely that one inclines, at least, to believe very little in either
good or ill fortune, as a matter of chance. There is always something at
the back of it which furnishes a key to the whole. Practically, a man's
lot is of his own making. He may fail, for a while undeservedly, or he
may succeed undeservedly, but, in the long run, time brings its revenges
and its rewards.

As it did to Donald Boyd. He has not been taken into the house of
Bethune & Co., as a partner; and it was long before he became even a
clerk--at least with anything like a high salary. For Mr. Bethune, so
far from being an old bachelor, had a large family to provide for, and
was bringing up several of his sons to his own business, so there was
little room for a stranger. But a young man who deserves to find room
generally does find it, or make it. And though Donald started at the
lowest rung of the ladder, he may climb to the top yet.

He had "a fair field, and no favor." Indeed, he neither wished nor asked
favor. He determined to stand on his own feet from the first. He had
hard work and few holidays, made mistakes, found them out and corrected
them, got sharp words and bore them, learnt his own weak points and--not
so easily--his strong ones. Still he did learn them; for, unless you can
trust yourself, be sure nobody else will trust you.

This was Donald's great point. HE WAS TRUSTED. People soon found out
that they might trust him; that he always told the truth, and