me, and were
made to bear the loss of his mistake."

"You are certainly not serious in what you say, Mr. Page!"

"I never was more serious in my life," returned the old gentleman.

"And you permitted me to be made the victim, upon your own
acknowledgment, of a shameful swindle, and did not expend even a breath
to save me!"

"I am not used to be spoken to in that way, young man," replied Mr.
Page, coldly, and with a slightly offended air. "Nor am I in the habit
of forcing my advice upon everybody."

"If you saw a man going blindfold towards the brink of a precipice,
wouldn't you force your advice upon him?"

"Perhaps I might. But as you were not going blindfold over a precipice,
I did not see that it was my business to interfere."

A cutting reply was on the lips of Jordan, but a thought of Edith
cooled him off suddenly, and he in a milder and more respectful tone of
voice, "I should be glad, Mr. Page, if you would demonstrate the error
under which I have been labouring in regard to this business. If there
is an error, I wish to see it; and can see it as quickly as any one, if
it really exists, and the proper means of seeing it are furnished."

The change in the young man's manner softened Mr. Page, and he sat
down, pencil in hand, and by the aid of the answers which the actual
experience of Jordan enabled him to give, showed him, in ten minutes,
that the more land he cleared and the more logs he sawed up, the poorer
he would become.

"And you knew all this before?" said Jordan.

"Certainly I did. In fact, I built the saw-mill owned by Tompkins, and
after sinking a couple of thousand dollars, was glad to get it off of
my hands at any price. Tompkins makes a living with it, and nothing
more. But then he is his own engineer, manager, clerk, and almost every
thing else, and lives with the closest economy in his family--much
closer than you or I would like to live."

"And you let me go on blindly and ruin myself, when a word from you
might have saved me!"

There was something indignant in the young man's manner.

"You didn't consult me on the subject. It is not my place to look after
everybody's business; I have enough to do to take care of my own
concerns."

Both were getting excited. Jordan retorted still more severely, and
then they parted in anger, each feeling that he had just cause to be
offended.

On the next day, Jordan, who was too well satisfied that Mr. Page was
right, stopped his mill, dischar