ked Mr. Lenox.

"Not exactly on my own account," replied John, "though I admit that the
three years or more seems a long time to me, but I have been drawing on
you exclusively all my life, except for the little money I earned in
Rush & Company's office, and--"

"You have done so, my dear boy," said his father gently, "with my
acquiescence. I may have been wrong, but that is a fact. If in my
judgment the arrangement may be continued for a while longer, and in the
mean time you are making progress toward a definite end, I think you
need have no misgivings. It gratifies me to have you feel as you do,
though it is no more than I should have expected of you, for you have
never caused me any serious anxiety or disappointment, my son."

Often in the after time did John thank God for that assurance.

"Thank you, sir," he said, putting down his hand, palm upward, on the
table, and his eyes filled as the elder man laid his hand in his, and
they gave each other a lingering pressure.

Mr. Lenox divided the last of the wine in the bottle between the two
glasses, and they drank it in silence, as if in pledge.

"I will go in to see Carey & Carey in the morning, and if they are
agreeable you can see them afterward," said Mr. Lenox. "They are not one
of the great firms, but they have a large and good practice, and they
are friends of mine. Shall I do so?" he asked, looking at his son.

"If you will be so kind," John replied, returning his look. And so the
matter was concluded.

CHAPTER VIII.

This history will not concern itself to any extent with our friend's
career as a law clerk, though, as he promised himself, he took it
seriously and laboriously while it lasted, notwithstanding that after
two years of being his own master, and the rather desultory and
altogether congenial life he had led, he found it at first even more
irksome than he had fancied. The novice penetrates but slowly the
mysteries of the law, and, unless he be of unusual aptitude and
imagination, the interesting and remunerative part seems for a long time
very far off. But John stuck manfully to the reading, and was diligent
in all that was put upon him to do; and after a while the days spent in
the office and in the work appointed to him began to pass more quickly.

He restrained his impulse to call at Sixty-ninth Street until what
seemed to him a fitting interval had elapsed; one which was longer than
it would otherwise have been, from an instinct