he despair of their tutor,
Philip Price, a quiet, not over robust-looking young man, who had
qualified for the Church, but as yet had failed in getting a living.
Meantime he taught the young Carnegys every morning, and made up a
slender income by giving afternoon lessons elsewhere.

The young man and his widowed mother, after their home was broken up by
death, had sought a hiding-place far from the summer-friends, who fell
away so quickly in the 'day of trouble.'

'I'll work for you, mother dear; never you fear about the future!'
Philip had bravely declared. Poor lad, he had gallantly striven to do
so, but sometimes he felt as though every man's hand was against him,
so fruitless were his struggles. It is hard work to force one's way
inside the world's pitilessly closed doors.

Certainly, Philip Price might have had his chances, as they are called,
if he had not been so bent upon entering the clerical profession. His
mother's relatives were City men of some repute, and a sure footing
among them might have been gained by the young man, had he chosen to
relinquish his dream. But Philip did not so choose. Even after he had
fully qualified, and the living he had made so sure of stepping into
passed into the hands of others, and it seemed as if the labourer were
not 'worthy of his hire,' Philip did not regret his choice of a career.

'It will come right, mother, don't you doubt it,' he persisted.
Meanwhile something else came. Failing health was the cross that
Philip Price was required to shoulder. He grew painfully thin as time
went on; his tall, elastic figure acquired a stoop; and there came, to
stay, an anxious, upright line between his eyebrows, that spoke of
mental worry.

'Philip dear,' his watchful mother, quick to note these signs, laid her
hand on his shoulder to say, 'these pupils try you overmuch. I know
they do!'

'Nonsense, dear old mater!' evaded Philip, imprisoning the wrinkled
hand. He had come in looking unusually spent, and thrown himself on
the hard, slippery sofa of the cheap lodging the Prices called,
nowadays, their home.

The truth was the young tutor had begun to tire woefully of the daily
grind he had taken up so blithely. It was the incorrigible Carnegy
boys who were his special worry. His other pupils, a meek, small boy
and his shy sister, though they would never set the Thames on fire by
their wit, at the same time would never goad their teacher to
desperation by mutinous, unr