al world acknowledges, and then I am as proud as if I had
unearthed an ancient manuscript, or found the philosopher's stone. I
pulled a fellow through a difficulty the other day, and it felt like
taking part in an exciting fight. I have speculated occasionally when I
was fishing--paying myself a huge compliment, no doubt--whether old
Izaak Walton felt like me about trade."

"Was he in trade?" inquired May, with some surprise. "I know he wrote
_The Complete Angler_, and was a friend of Dr. Donne's and George
Herbert's, and is very much thought of to this day."

"Deservedly," said Tom Robinson emphatically. "Yes, I am proud to say,
he was a hosier to begin with, and a linen-draper to end
with--well-to-do in both lines. They say his first wife, whom he married
while he was still in business, was a niece of the Archbishop of
Canterbury of the day, and his second wife, whom he married after he had
retired to live on his earnings, was a half-sister of good Bishop Ken's;
but I do not pretend to vouch for the truth of these statements. Now,
about your father. I cannot do what you ask--I cannot in conscience.
Will you ever forgive me, 'little May'--that is what your father and
mother and your sisters call you sometimes to this day, ain't it? and it
is what I should have called you if I had been--your uncle say? Shall we
be no longer friends?" he demanded ruefully.

"Of course we shall," said May, with a suspicion of petulance. "You are
not bound to do what I bid you--I never thought that; and you are father
and mother's friend--how could I help being your friend?"

"Don't try to help it," he charged her.

Tom Robinson went farther than not feeling bound to do what May begged
of him, he was constrained to remonstrate in another quarter to prevent
trouble and disappointment to all concerned. He screwed up his courage,
and everybody knows he was a modest man, and called at the Old Doctor's
House for the express purpose. He had called seldom during the past
year--just often enough to keep up the form of visiting--to show that he
was not the surly boor, without self-respect or consideration for the
Millars, which he would have been if he had dropped all intercourse with
the family because one of them had refused to marry him. But though he
had begged for Dora's friendship when he could not have her love, and
had meant what he said, the wound was too recent for him to act as if
nothing had happened. In addition to the pain and sel