me responsible for his debts, which he left me
to pay; then I was poor, whilst he grew rich and hated me!"

"Hated you?"

"Of course! We may forgive those who wrong us, but not those we have
wronged. He never forgave me for having been robbed by him!" And the old
man's voice grew hard and ironical at the recollection.

"Why didn't you ever get married?" asked Frank. "You have one of the
best, biggest hearts in the world, and you ought to have loved somebody
with it. Didn't you ever?"

The spirit of the old man shrank sensitively within him for a moment.
Then he said to himself, "He will know of it some day, and I may as well
tell him." For the heart that had been frozen for years this youth had
had power to thaw.

"I never loved--any woman--well enough to marry her. But there was once a
little girl that I had known from her cradle--for I was many years older
than she. I used to pet her, and tell her stories, and sing and play to
her, until I became more bound up in her than was very wise for one who
was not her father or her brother. Well, she got to be of your age, and
still ran to kiss me when I came, and never guessed what was growing up
in my heart and taking possession of me, for it was stronger than I, and
stronger than all the world. I saw her fast becoming a woman, and forgot
that I was at the same time fast becoming an old man. And one day I asked
her to marry me. I did not mean then, but in a few years. But she did not
stop to hear my explanations. She sprang from me with a scream. And that
ended it. She could never be to me again the innocent pet she had been,
and as for being what I wished--I saw at once how absurd the proposal
was! I saw that from that time she could regard me only with astonishment
and laughter. I was always extremely sensitive, and this affair, with the
other I have told you of, proved too much for me. I fled from society. I
enlisted as a drummer, and I suppose I shall never be any thing but a
drummer now. And this, my boy, is the reason I was never married."

Drearily sounded the old man's voice as he closed.

"It is all so sad!" said Frank. "But ought a man to do so, because he has
been once or twice deceived? I have heard my mother say that as we are to
others, so they will be to us. If we are generous, that excites them to
be generous; and love calls out love."

"Your mother says that?" replied Mr. Sinjin in a low voice. "Ah, and she
says true! If one is proud and reserved, he