He had already looked at lodgings in Charlotte Street, close at hand; but this unexpected proposal came like a reprieve to an exile, and he was as prompt in his acceptance as he had been in that previous decision which had so thoroughly swamped all Mr. Chadwick’s plans for his advancement. His eager “Oh, madam, you cannot mean it! You overwhelm me with kindness. Remain under this roof! It is a privilege I had not anticipated, and I shall be proud to embrace it!” sent Mrs. Ashton away well pleased. It was doubly satisfactory to find the comforts of their home appreciated after seven years’ experience, and to be able to refute Mr. Ashton’s theory that “all young men like to shake a loose leg, and Jabez would be too glad to escape from grumbling Kezia’s jurisdiction to accept the offer.” Mr. Ashton, however, did not abandon the opinion he had formed. “I’ll wager my gold snuff-box against a button-mould,” asserted he, “that Clegg only said ‘Yes’ because gratitude would not let him say ‘Nay!’ It’s not likely a young man would care to be always under the eyes of a master or mistress, however steady he may be.” Ah, but neither Mr. nor Mrs. Ashton knew there was a magnet under their roof, stronger than all the ordinary inducements which might otherwise have drawn him away—and perhaps it was as well for him they did not. Simon, who was present at the time, seemed literally overpowered with gratitude for all the good which was falling into the lap of the child of his adoption. He, however, took his own views of the matter, views not calculated to puff Jabez up in his own esteem, and when Mrs. Ashton was gone he broke out— “Oh, Jabez, lad! but thah’s lit on thi feet! Thah’s bin a good lad, aw reckon, an’ thah’s sarved thi master gradely; but thah sees many a lad does that as never gets a lift such as thah’s getten. an’ aw canno’ but thenk it o’ comes o’ that prayer o’ thy Israelite neamesake, as aw towt thee when thou wer no bigger nor sixpenn’orth o’ copper. yo’ hanna furgetten it, aw hope?” No, Jabez had not forgotten it! It would be strange if he had. Nay, only that morning, in the flush of success he had carried from the counting-house, with the buoyant presumption of youth, a conviction that it was not so much a prayer as a prophecy nearing fulfilment. Simon brought his soaring pinions down from their Icarian flight. “Well, lad, it may be ‘the Lord has enlarge thi coast,’ but if so be He han, thah sees theer’s moore room fur thee to slip as well as to stond, and theer’s moore rayson whoi thah shouldn be thenkful and humble! for the big book says, ‘Let him that stondeth tak’ heed lest he fall,’ an’ aw shouldna loike t’ see thi young yead torned wi proide.” His lecture was somewhat of a cold shower-bath to Jabez in his hour of triumph, but no doubt it was salutary in its ultimate effects. At all events, it kept the vaulting ambition of the new man a little in check.