heaven and earth to bring it about. I KNOW you
won't be allowed to suffer for doing him a kindness, Silas. He CAN'T
be so ungrateful! Why, why SHOULD he pretend to have any such parties
in view when he hasn't? Don't you be down-hearted, Si. You'll see that
he'll be round with them to-morrow."

Lapham laughed, but she urged so many reasons for her belief in Rogers
that Lapham began to rekindle his own faith a little. He ended by
asking for a hot cup of tea; and Mrs. Lapham sent the pot out and had a
fresh one steeped for him. After that he made a hearty supper in the
revulsion from his entire despair; and they fell asleep that night
talking hopefully of his affairs, which he laid before her fully, as he
used to do when he first started in business. That brought the old
times back, and he said: "If this had happened then, I shouldn't have
cared much. I was young then, and I wasn't afraid of anything. But I
noticed that after I passed fifty I began to get scared easier. I
don't believe I could pick up, now, from a regular knock-down."

"Pshaw! YOU scared, Silas Lapham?" cried his wife proudly. "I should
like to see the thing that ever scared you; or the knockdown that YOU
couldn't pick up from!"

"Is that so, Persis?" he asked, with the joy her courage gave him.

In the middle of the night she called to him, in a voice which the
darkness rendered still more deeply troubled: "Are you awake, Silas?"

"Yes; I'm awake."

"I've been thinking about those English parties, Si----"

"So've I."

"And I can't make it out but what you'd be just as bad as Rogers, every
bit and grain, if you were to let them have the mills----"

"And not tell 'em what the chances were with the G. L. & P.? I thought
of that, and you needn't be afraid."

She began to bewail herself, and to sob convulsively: "O Silas! O
Silas!" Heaven knows in what measure the passion of her soul was mired
with pride in her husband's honesty, relief from an apprehended
struggle, and pity for him.

"Hush, hush, Persis!" he besought her. "You'll wake Pen if you keep on
that way. Don't cry any more! You mustn't."

"Oh, let me cry, Silas! It'll help me. I shall be all right in a
minute. Don't you mind." She sobbed herself quiet. "It does seem too
hard," she said, when she could speak again, "that you have to give up
this chance when Providence had fairly raised it up for you."

"I guess it wa'n't Providence raised it up," said Lapham. "Any rate,