Now, if this were an imaginary story, I might wind it up by a delightful denoument of Mr. Bethune's turning out an old friend of the family, or developing into a new one, and taking such a fancy to Donald that he immediately gave him a clerkship with a large salary, and the promise of a partnership on coming of age, or this worthy gentleman should be an eccentric old bachelor who immediately adopted that wonderful boy and befriended the whole Boyd family. But neither of these things, nor anything else remarkable, happened in the real story, which, as it is literally true, though told with certain necessary disguises, I prefer to keep to as closely as I can. Such astonishing bits of "luck" do not happen in real life, or happen so rarely that one inclines, at least, to believe very little in either good or ill fortune, as a matter of chance. There is always something at the back of it which furnishes a key to the whole. Practically, a man's lot is of his own making. He may fail, for a while undeservedly, or he may succeed undeservedly, but, in the long run, time brings its revenges and its rewards. As it did to Donald Boyd. He has not been taken into the house of Bethune & Co., as a partner; and it was long before he became even a clerk--at least with anything like a high salary. For Mr. Bethune, so far from being an old bachelor, had a large family to provide for, and was bringing up several of his sons to his own business, so there was little room for a stranger. But a young man who deserves to find room generally does find it, or make it. And though Donald started at the lowest rung of the ladder, he may climb to the top yet. He had "a fair field, and no favor." Indeed, he neither wished nor asked favor. He determined to stand on his own feet from the first. He had hard work and few holidays, made mistakes, found them out and corrected them, got sharp words and bore them, learnt his own weak points and--not so easily--his strong ones. Still he did learn them; for, unless you can trust yourself, be sure nobody else will trust you. This was Donald's great point. HE WAS TRUSTED. People soon found out that they might trust him; that he always told the truth, and never pretended to do more than he could do; but that which he could do, they might depend upon his doing, punctually, accurately, carefully, and never leaving off till it was done. Therefore, though others might be quicker, sharper, more "up to things" than he, there was no one so reliable, and it soon got to be a proverb in the office of Bethune & Co.--and other offices, too--"If you wish a thing done, go to Boyd."