"Did you hear that?" said Fred, in a voice intended for a whisper, but which in my confusion I was sure the young gentleman had overheard. "Half a dollar a quart!" I moved away instantly toward home, never daring to look back at either the widow or her customer, lest my eyes should encounter those of the latter, as I was sure he must have heard my brother's exclamation, and been satisfied that it was I who raised the berries he had so much admired. It was unaccountable to me that I should be so foolish. But no one, unable to correctly analyze his feelings, can at the moment account for the strange impulses which an unlooked-for emergency will send hurrying through the heart. Time and a succession of events may sometimes unlock the mystery of their origin. I am sure that it required both to solve the problem for me. Fred trundled his barrow at my side as we returned to breakfast. He was full of exultation at our success, and even began to count up what our profits would be. We had made so capital a beginning that he was sure they must be very large. Alas! he knew little of the world except its sanguine hopes. He reasoned only from the beginning, without knowing the stumbling-blocks that might be encountered before we reached the end. But then what would this world be, if hope were banished from it? Still, though fairly estimating all these contingent disappointments, my spirits were buoyant as his own. That was apparently a short walk to our distant home, for there was abundant conversation and debate to beguile the way. My mother stood in the doorway as we approached the house; but when Fred told her the story of the young gentleman, how he looked and behaved,--I somehow felt unable to do it,--with the crowning incident of the great basketful of berries he had purchased at half a dollar a quart, and that without even asking the price, I think I never knew my dear mother to be so delighted at any event in the quiet history of our little family. Ah, what a happy breakfast it was that we sat down to that morning! I could not repeat the exultations expressed on all hands over my success. My mother seemed so supremely gratified at the prospect now opening before us, that her delight was a bountiful reward for me. She had never manifested so much cheerfulness since we lost our father. Fred insisted on continuing his calculations of what our profits would be; but though he brought out great results on paper, for he was remarkably expert at figures, yet, even with my constitutional enthusiasm, I refused to be unduly set up by his extravagant anticipations. It seemed with him to be as great a happiness to merely calculate the profit as it was for me to produce it.