“I thank you very much for your kindness,” said Willie, earnestly, “and I will always remember it.” There was something in the boy’s earnest tone which Lizzie felt was an ample recompense for the little sacrifice she had made. Mr. Dinsmoor fulfilled his promise, and walked with Willie as far as the street in which he lived, when, feeling sure that he could no longer mistake his way, he left him. Mr. Dinsmoor, whom we have introduced to our readers, was a prosperous merchant, and counted his wealth by hundreds of thousands. Fortunately, his disposition was liberal; and he made the poor sharers with him in the gifts which Fortune had so liberally showered upon him. Notwithstanding the good use which he made of his wealth, he was fated to experience reverses,—resulting, not from his own mismanagement, but from a general commercial panic, which all at once involved in ruin many whose fortunes were large, and whose credit was long established. In a word, Mr. Dinsmoor failed. * * * * * Eleven years had rolled by since the Christmas night on which our story opens. Lizzie had not belied the promise of her girlhood, but had developed into a radiantly beautiful girl. Already her hand had been sought in marriage; but, as yet, she had seen no one on whom she could look with that affection without which marriage would be a mockery. Charlie and Harry, too,—eleven years had changed them not a little. The boys of four and six had become fine, manly youths of fifteen and seventeen. The eldest had entered college. Harry, however, who was by no means studious, had entered his father’s counting-room. That was a sorrowful night on which Mr. Dinsmoor made known to his afflicted wife the bankruptcy which was inevitable. Still sadder, if possible, was the sale which it enforced of the house which they had so long occupied, the furniture which had become endeared to them by memory and association, and the harsh interruption which loss of fortune put to all their treasured schemes. “My poor boy,” said Mrs. Dinsmoor, sorrowfully, as she placed her hand caressingly on the brown locks of Charlie, the eldest of the two boys, “it will be a hard sacrifice for you to leave the studies to which you are so much attached, and enter a store, as you will be obliged to do.” “Ah! I had not thought of that,” murmured Charlie. “It will, indeed, be a sacrifice; but, mother, I would not care for that, if you could only be spared the trials to which you will be exposed from poverty.” “Thank you for your consideration, my child; but do not fear that I shall not accommodate myself to it. It is a heavy trial; but we must try to think that it will ultimately eventuate in our good.”