edeeming some of those large promises to pay
which I had long ago given up as hopeless bad debts; even now, it gives
me a wrench to remember the crudest chapter in that bitter lesson. So
certain had I been of reelection that I had arranged to go to Boston the
day after my triumph at the polls. For I knew from friends of the
Crosbys in Pulaski that Elizabeth was still unmarried, was not engaged,
and upon that I had built high a romantic hope.

* * * * *

I made up my mind that mother and I must leave Pulaski, that I must give
up the law and must, in Chicago or Cleveland, get something to do that
would bring in a living at once. Before I found courage to tell her that
which would blast hopes wrapped round and rooted in her very heart, and,
fortunately, before I had to confess to her the debts I had made, Edward
Ramsay threw me a life-line.

He came bustling into my office one afternoon, big and broad, and
obviously pleased with himself, and, therefore, with the world. He had
hardly changed in the years since we were at Ann Arbor together. He had
kept up our friendship, and had insisted on visiting me several times,
though not in the past four years, which had been as busy for him as for
me. Latterly his letters urging me to visit him at their great country
place, away at the other end of the state, had set me a hard task of
inventing excuses.

"Well, well!" he exclaimed, shaking my hand violently in both his. "You
wouldn't come to see me, so I've come to you."

I tried not to show the nervousness this announcement stirred. "I'm
afraid you'll find our hospitality rather uncomfortable," was all I
said. Mother and I had not spread much sail to our temporary gust of
prosperity; and when the storm began to gather, she straightway
closereefed.

"Thanks, but I can't stop with you this time," said he. "I'm making an
inspection of the Power Trust's properties, and I've got mother and
sister along. We're living in the private car the company gives me for
the tour." He went on to tell how, since his father's death, he had been
forced into responsibilities, and was, among many other things, a member
of the Power Trust's executive committee.

Soon came the inevitable question, "And how are you getting on?"

"So so," replied I; "not too well, just at the present. I was beaten,
you know, and have to go back to my practice in January."

"Wish you lived in my part of the state," said he. "But the R