e substantial progress. He hoped
she would not alter her plans, as she had meditated, but he gladly
accepted her services as "London agent." There was little chance,
though, of his being able to send her the first remittance for several
months, by which time she would probably be back in town.

CHAPTER III.

Meanwhile Morgan had settled down "at case" and was patiently learning
to pick up the "stamps." He was initiated into the mysteries of ems
and ens, of leading and spacing and making-up. Racks and galleys and
wooden and metal "furniture" played a large part in his dreams;
turpentine, paraffin and machine-oil, roller composition and inks
became the breath of his nostrils. By an effort of concentration he
would never before have been capable of, he made rapid advance,
Kettering generously letting him do such work as he could do most
effectively, so that his wages' account mounted week by week. The
close attention his work demanded made mind-wandering and aimless
thinking impossible; but as time went by and he found himself
acquiring skill, his enthusiasm grew, and he threw himself into his
new occupation almost with frenzy, taking a sort of savage
satisfaction in the grey grime of the workshop with its soiled wooden
fittings, and in the silent companionship of his aproned co-workers.

He filled up his time at every department of the trade,
learning--besides type-setting and proof-correcting--to take the
gas-engine to pieces and to clean it, to help to make ready "formes"
on the machine, to mix inks, to clean rollers and to work at press,
either as inker or puller. But the grime had no power to enter into
his spirit, though some slight suggestion of his occupation began
eventually to show itself in his face. His hands, too, suffered
severely, for soft white hands get quickly ill-used in a printer's
workshop.

Still smarting under a long lecture from their father, Alice and Mary
had at first taken care to confine conversation with him to trade
exigencies; but after a few days they had grown to accept him as part
of the household, and were civil to him again. Mrs. Kettering liked to
get him to herself of an evening and talk to him for two hours at a
time. Kettering himself would fidget a good deal at such times, but
scarcely ventured to intrude, though apparently his greatest delight
was also to converse with Morgan. But Mrs. Kettering showed no such
scruples about entering into the conversation and eventuall