n but a very short time in
his new place of business, but when the perilous railroad carriage drive
was taken with the Hastings' carriage he had been Mr. Stephens'
confidential clerk for three years, and was as much trusted and as
promptly obeyed as was Mr. Stephens himself. He allowed a reasonable
length of time to elapse after that momentous drive, and then one
evening availed himself of Dora Hastings' cordial invitation to call.
This was an attempt which he had never made before. Although he had gone
somewhat into society since that memorable first evening at his
pastor's house, yet the society in which he had grown most familiar,
namely: that connected with his beloved church and Sabbath-school, was
not the society in which Miss Hastings more generally mingled. This and
her frequent and prolonged absences from the city, combined, perhaps,
with other and minor causes, were the reasons why they had not again met
socially; and, beyond an occasional bow as they passed each other in the
church aisle, they had been as strangers to each other; this until the
dangerous ride taken together. Then, as I said, after a little Theodore
rang at the Hastings' mansion, had a peep of Dora sitting at the window,
a peep of Mr. Hastings composedly pacing the length of the room, and
after waiting what seemed to him an unreasonably long time for answer to
his card, was courteously informed that the family were "not at home!"
This was the great man's gratitude for the preservation of his
daughter's life! He _was_ grateful--was willing to make the young man
his coachman, and to pay him in money; but he was not willing to receive
him in his parlor on an equal social footing, for who knew better than
he from what depths of poverty and degradation the young upstart had
sprung! Theodore did not look very grave; he even laughed as he turned
and ran lightly down the granite steps; and he was pleased but not
surprised when a few days thereafter he met Dora on the square, and she
stopped and frankly and distinctly disclaimed any complicity in her
father's uncourteous act, or sympathy with his feelings. And there once
more the matter dropped.

On this evening, four weeks after the call, Theodore was walking rather
rapidly toward his home; he had been spending the evening with Jim
McPherson; the old stand had been enlarged and beautified, until now it
was a very marvel of taste and elegance. Jim had evidently found his
level or his hight. Theodore st