"Matthew probably would have had his revenge in some other way, if he had not succeeded in his first trial." "Very true; but had it been in some other form, it might have been shown that he was the guilty party; whereas now it would seem that you were the author of your own misfortune, while the real agent of the occurrence goes unsuspected, and exults in your downfall." "I thought he wanted to be friends with me, so I tried not to displease him." "Well, I hope that affair will be a valuable lesson to you. It has certainly proved itself a costly one. You should learn to look at the motives of people, and not trust them too far, simply because they smile upon you once and seem friendly. I don't think that your judgment was very keen, or you would have seen through De Vere's sudden change of manner when you had reason to suppose he would maintain a more hostile attitude than ever." "Don't be too hard upon him, Samuel," interrupted Mrs. Worthington, who saw that Fred was growing restive under his father's rebukes. "I am not trying to be hard upon him," replied her husband, "but simply wish to bring this matter before him in a way that will enable him to make the most of this experience. I want to teach him to avoid such errors in the future; for this is an almost fatal mistake in his case, which will follow him for years, and will, so far as I can see, change his whole life's career." "Why, how is that, father?" inquired Fred, in a half frightened voice. "It is simply this: your mother and I always intended that you should become a merchant. We instilled that idea into you from a child, and as you grew older, to our satisfaction you showed a decided taste for such a life. At last I got you a place in a store where I thought you could build yourself up, and, in course of time, go into business for yourself. You showed an aptitude for the work, and Mr. Rexford assured me that you were one of the very best clerks that ever worked for him. This, however, was before he was led to suspect you because of the De Vere affair. Now you have been discharged by him on the suspicion of having stolen money from his drawer. Under these circumstances, no one in town would take you into his store as clerk; so you may as well give up, first as last, the idea of becoming a trader." "Couldn't I get a place in Boston, or somewhere else?" "I think not; and if you could, I should not be willing to have you go away from home." "Why not, father? Wouldn't it be better than for me to stay here, where I can get nothing to do?" "No, my son; you are too young to go away from home, where you would have no one to look after you, and where you would be subject to many evil influences." "Here every one will think I am a thief, and probably my friends will not speak to me," added Fred, in a more sorrowful tone than ever.