They parted with much warm gratitude on the honest fellow's side. He took the evening train for home; and his mother had a good cup of tea awaiting him, along with her smile. He related his grand good luck, and there were not two happier people in all Yerbury. When the bank found he had an account at New York, and a good backer, they were extremely affable again. Jack broached the new idea to Winston and Cameron. "To be sure," admitted Winston. "Some one will do it presently, and we might get the lead. Darcy, your old lady is a trump, and always carries the honors. There will have to be some new processes: see here, talk to Ben Hay about it; he's made two or three improvements, and has some brains. Gad! It'll be quite jolly to have a new line of goods. Get the ladies on your side, and you're all right!" He had not a spare moment until after his late supper, when he told his mother he must run over to the Lawrences, and stop a moment at the doctor's, though he had despatched the good news to him in the morning. He found matters worse than he had feared. There had been an alarming change in Miss Lawrence. Martha ushered him through the hall to the library, where Fred was sitting. The two clasped hands, and then sat down together. A hard, dry sob seemed to tear its way up from Fred's very soul. "Jack," he cried in a strained, despairing tone, "could I have done any thing to save her? I have been engrossed with my own affairs, my own dreams of advancement. I wanted to have money again, but it was for her sake and my mother's," with a lingering tremulous intonation. "She has been too solitary, she has brooded over every thing. But she would not go out, or see any company; and somehow it was our misfortune to grow up without any warm, vital interest in each other. When I was a boy I used to like it at your house, because your father and mother took such a real delight in you. It is the pith of life. Poor father--he was very proud of me, he gave his life for our pleasure and grandeur and reckless extravagance, yet all the later years we were well-nigh strangers. Why can't people get nearer to each other, Jack, or is it only given to the very few? Does the greedy world swallow up every sentiment, every bit of tenderness, and make a mock of it?" "No, no! Nothing can quite kill it, thank God! You and I have proved that. It may be smothered under dust and rubbish, and frozen with neglect, but the germ will revive,--just as the brown woolly ball evolves the fine delicate fern-leaf that it has held in its heart through winter storms, you know. Don't blame yourself. Every soul has to fight its own battle somewhere, with no day's-man between but God. We get back to the old truth in spite of the new philosophies, and own in our vanquished moments that we cannot _make_ strength, that ours is only a broken reed, and the true upholding force must come from some knowledge higher than our own."