Mr. George Arkell had an elder brother, Daniel; rarely called anything but Dan. _He_ had not prospered. He had had the opportunity of prospering just as much as his brother had, but he had not done it. A fatal speculation into which Dan always said he was "drawn," but which everybody else said he had plunged into of himself with confiding eagerness, had gone very far towards ruining him. He did not fail; he was of the honourable Arkell nature; and he paid every debt he owed to the uttermost penny--paid grandly and liberally; but it left him with no earthly possession except the house he lived in, and that he couldn't part with. Dan was a middle-aged man then, and he was fain to accept a clerkship in the city bank at a hundred a year salary; and he abjured speculation for the future, and lived quietly on in the old house with his wife and two children, Peter and Mildred. But wealth, as you are aware, is always bowed down to, and Westerbury somehow fell into the habit of calling the wealthy manufacturer "Mr. Arkell," and the elder "Mr. Dan." How contrary things run in this world! The one cherished dream of Peter Arkell's life was to get to the University, for his heart was set on entering the Church; and poor Peter could not get to it. His cousin William, who might have gone had it cost thousands, declined to go; Peter, who had no thousands--no, nor pounds, either, at his command, was obliged to relinquish it. It is possible that had Mr. Arkell known of this strong wish, he might have smoothed the way for his nephew, but Peter never told it. He was of a meek, reticent, somewhat shy nature; and even his own father knew not how ardently the wish had been cherished. "You must do something for your living, Peter," Mr. Dan Arkell had said, when his son quitted the college school in which he had been educated. "The bank has promised you a clerkship, and thirty pounds a year to begin with; and I think you can't do better than take it." Poor, shy, timid Peter thought within himself he could do a great deal better, had things been favourable; but they were not favourable, and the bank and the thirty pounds carried the day. He sat on a high stool from nine o'clock until five, and consoled himself at home in the evenings with his beloved classics. Some years thus passed on, and about the time that William Arkell was taken into partnership by his father, Mr. Daniel Arkell died, and Peter was promoted to the better clerkship, and to the hundred a year salary. He saw no escape now; he was a banker's clerk for life. And now that all this preliminary explanation is over--and I assure you I am as glad to get it over as you can be--let us go on to the story.