,
Phineas--I won't part with you."

"Young man, thou must," said my father, turning round.

"But--"

"I have said it, Phineas. I accuse him of no dishonesty, no crime, but
of weakly yielding, and selfishly causing another to yield, to the
temptation of the world. Therefore, as my clerk I retain him; as my
son's companion--never!"

We felt that "never" was irrevocable.

Yet I tried, blindly and despairingly, to wrestle with it; I might as
well have flung myself against a stone wall.

John stood perfectly silent.

"Don't, Phineas," he whispered at last; "never mind me. Your father is
right--at least so far as he sees. Let me go--perhaps I may come back
to you some time. If not--"

I moaned out bitter words--I hardly knew what I was saying. My father
took no notice of them, only went to the door and called Jael.

Then, before the woman came, I had strength enough to bid John go.

"Good-bye--don't forget me, don't!"

"I will not," he said; "and if I live we shall be friends again.
Good-bye, Phineas." He was gone.

After that day, though he kept his word, and remained in the tan-yard,
and though from time to time I heard of him--always
accidentally,--after that day for two long years I never once saw the
face of John Halifax.

CHAPTER VII

It was the year 1800, long known in English households as "the dear
year." The present generation can have no conception of what a
terrible time that was--War, Famine, and Tumult stalking hand-in-hand,
and no one to stay them. For between the upper and lower classes there
was a great gulf fixed; the rich ground the faces of the poor, the poor
hated, yet meanly succumbed to, the rich. Neither had Christianity
enough boldly to cross the line of demarcation, and prove, the humbler,
that they were men,--the higher and wiser, that they were gentlemen.

These troubles, which were everywhere abroad, reached us even in our
quiet town of Norton Bury. For myself, personally, they touched me
not, or, at least, only kept fluttering like evil birds outside the
dear home-tabernacle, where I and Patience sat, keeping our solemn
counsel together--for these two years had with me been very hard.

Though I had to bear so much bodily suffering that I was seldom told of
any worldly cares, still I often fancied things were going ill both
within and without our doors. Jael complained in an under-key of
stinted housekeeping, or boasted aloud of her own ingenuity in making
ends