A STORY OF A FATHER'S SACRIFICE OF HIS CHILD AT THE SHRINE OF MAMMON. "Sirrah! you have nothing to do but to get on in the world. You _may_ do that, if you will. The way is open for you, as it was for me; so get up to London, and try. There's twenty pounds for you: I'll give you twenty thousand, as soon as you show me one thousand of your own; but I won't give you another farthing till you prove to me that you know the value of money, and can get it yourself. And mark me, sir! if you haven't the nouse to make something out in the world, you shall live and die a beggar, for me; for I'll leave all I have to your sisters, and cut you off with a shilling. There, sir! there's your road! Good morning!" And so saying, Mr. Ned Wilcom, senior, pushed Mr. Ned Wilcom, junior, his only son, out of his counting-house, and shut the door upon him. That was an awkward way for a rich Leeds merchant to receive a son on the completion of his apprenticeship as a draper, and at the early age of twenty. Yet it was no worse than young Ned expected. Nor did it break his heart, as it would have broken the heart of a lad who had been more tenderly nurtured. Ned Wilcom never saw his father occupied with any other thought, act, employ, or pleasure, but what pertained to money-getting; nor ever heard his father pass an encomium on any human character in his life, save on such as succeeded in piling together large fortunes from small beginnings, or enriched themselves by outwitting their neighbours. From the age of nine to sixteen, he had only seen his father twice a year--Midsummer and Christmas; and having lost his mother when a mere infant, he never knew or felt the softening influences of maternal affection. The artificial life of a boarding-school, during those seven years, infused a good deal of craft, and nearly as large a measure of heartlessness, into Ned's nature--for it was not originally of such tendencies. The master and ushers were hypocrites and tyrants, only differing in grade; and if there were a lad with a little more gentleness, humanity, and openness about him than the rest, Ned observed that he soon "went to the wall" among his school-fellows. And so, with one influence or other, Ned Wilcom left school with the firm persuasion that the world was a general battle-field, where the weak and the virtuous were destined to become the prey of the strong and the crafty; and, all things considered, Ned resolved to take sides with the winning party.