"I had expected that question, foolish as it is," replied Mr. Carleton, with a laugh. "If it is unmanly, then I was unmanly, for I went through Clinton Academy on one of those very scholarships. But, seriously, where is it unmanly? You can go through the academy working your own way without doubt. But you will have to stay out some in order to earn the necessary funds. This interrupts your studies, and compels you, we will say, to be six years in getting what otherwise you would have gotten in four. Which is wiser, to lose those two years, or accept the slight aid that will bring you along two years sooner to your life's work? The town or State, one or both, must maintain our common schools; our colleges and academies exist only because some friends have liberally endowed them. There is no part of the education that comes to us that has not been secured at less cost because of the help others have afforded. It is simply a question of the amount of help we will permit ourselves to receive. Thousands of our most useful men would never have received an education at all had it not been for accepting just the same kind of help that is now offered you." "I guess the question was a foolish one," admitted Ray; "but I shall feel all the better for your explanation, and I am very grateful to all of you who have taken interest enough in me to arrange this thing. I had scarcely thought it possible for me to go to Clinton Academy, even while I was saving up my money to go to some school. It was a hard struggle, too, for me to give up that money to George; but I knew it was right, and I did it, believing that God would open the way for me to get an education, and he has, even better than I planned." He was silent a moment or two, as though in deep thought, then he added: "Who would have supposed that just that meeting with Mr. Swinburne that day would have led to this." "Remember, too," said Mr. Carleton, with emphasis, "that it was after you refused to accept the money those men offered you for your education, and not before. When you had refused to accept an education by dishonest means, God led you in his way, and opened for you this door. So far as I can see, the education is within your reach, and in an honest, manly way also." "God's ways are better as well as higher than our ways," remarked Ray, his eyes filling with tears of joy. "This, then, was what Edward Lawton wanted to talk over with me. How I wish he was going too!" "He is," answered Mr. Carleton, with a laugh; "that is what he wants to talk over with you. His mother finds that she can, with economy, send him, though he will have to help himself somewhat, and as Mrs. Lawton will have much furniture to spare when she moves into her cottage, she proposes to fit you boys out with everything to make your rooms at the academy comfortable. There will not be a thing for you to provide in that direction."