"I have a feeling, since your father has gone, that I have lived my life, my dear, though I'd like to stay long enough to see you happily married--to have grandchildren. I was not young when you were born." And she added, after a little while, "I know nothing about business affairs, and now--now that your father is no longer here, sometimes I'm afraid--" "Afraid of what, mother?" She tried to smile at me through her tears. We were in the old sitting-room, surrounded by the books. "I know it's foolish, and it isn't that I don't trust you. I know that the son of your father couldn't do anything that was not honourable. And yet I am afraid of what the world is becoming. The city is growing so fast, and so many new people are coming in. Things are not the same. Robert is right, there. And I have heard your father say the same thing. Hugh, promise me that you will try to remember always what he was, and what he would wish you to be!" "I will, mother," I answered. "But I think you would find that Cousin Robert exaggerates a little, makes things seem worse than they really are. Customs change, you know. And politics were never well--Sunday schools." I, too, smiled a little. "Father knew that. And he would never take an active part in them." "He was too fine!" she exclaimed. "And now," I continued, "Cousin Robert has happened to come in contact with them through business. That is what has made the difference in him. Before, he always knew they were corrupt, but he rarely thought about them." "Hugh," she said suddenly, after a pause, "you must remember one thing,--that you can afford to be independent. I thank God that your father has provided for that!" I was duly admitted, the next autumn, to the bar of my own state, and was assigned to a desk in the offices of Watling, Fowndes and Ripon. Larry Weed was my immediate senior among the apprentices, and Larry was a hero-worshipper. I can see him now. He suggested a bullfrog as he sat in the little room we shared in common, his arms akimbo over a law book, his little legs doubled under him, his round, eyes fixed expectantly on the doorway. And even if I had not been aware of my good fortune in being connected with such a firm as Theodore Watling's, Larry would shortly have brought it home to me. During those weeks when I was making my first desperate attempts at briefing up the law I was sometimes interrupted by his exclamations when certain figures went by in the corridor. "Say, Hugh, do you know who that was?" "No." "Miller Gorse." "Who's he?" "Do you mean to say you never heard of Miller Gorse?"