She looked with tender thoughtful eyes at the lad before her, and smoothed his fair hair with a hand that had to reach up to touch it, for she was a little woman. “Yes,” said the boy, with a lip that he could not keep from quivering a little. “Somehow I didn’t expect it. Of course, I know lots of the fellows have been turned off lately; times are dull just now, and the firm always cut down the force when they can. It’s easy enough to take on new men when they want them, and those who have been there longest have first right to stay. I know that. But somehow I had thought that father’s work with them——” “Yes,” said his mother. She sat down in a low chair, and with a gesture drew the boy to her side. “You say you had not expected to be turned away, Francis. Neither had I thought of it! There were reasons—— Your father thought that your future was assured, at least, if only—only as an atonement to him. The firm did not promise me to take care of you, to be sure, but it was understood. They sent at once, you know, and offered you the position. It was only right that you should begin at the bottom of the ladder.” “The bottom of the ladder is about under ground there,” said the boy with a whimsical shake of his head. “It’s pretty low down, I can tell you! Why there are firms not a quarter so rich as they who pay their boys more—enough for car-fare and shoes and lunch, _anyway_—of course, though that’s one of the ways they _get_ rich. I’m not complaining. But I thought to-day if father were the head of the business, and I had been one of Mr. Nelson’s boys——” “Your father loved Mr. Nelson,” said the mother, after a silence during which the two had sat with clasped hands. “And Mr. White too,” she added. “And didn’t they love him?” “Yes, once—before they began to make so much money, and after it,—perhaps—sometimes! I don’t know. Mr. Nelson was moved when he came to see me that first time; he meant to be kind about you. To your father he was always the friend he had loved even when he was cut to the heart with John Nelson’s altered ways. There are some people who are _born_ constant.” “But don’t you mind,” said the boy, a little wistfully, “that I am thrown out of the place? I walked around the town two hours this morning before I could make up my mind to come and tell you, though I knew it Friday. I was afraid it would be too great a shock to you; and yet you don’t seem to think anything of it at all.”