ough his mother
had said much against it.

"Frankly, I do not approve of it, dear," she said. "I agree, but I do
not approve. I do not like it, that you should desert the trodden
path of your forebears. It is not so much that I am proud, but I am
conservative. I believe there is a certain harmony between the man
and the road his race have travelled. I believe he is a very sorry
figure on another, especially if it be on a lower level."

"I don't think it is a question of level," said Randolph. "A road is
simply a question of progress."

"Well, perhaps," said his mother, "but in that case the state of
things is the same. A grocer would cut a sorry figure on your road,
even if it ran parallel towards the same goal, and a lawyer would cut
a sorry figure on a grocer's. Frankly, dear, I really doubt if you
will make a good grocer."

Randolph laughed. "At least I hope I can earn our bread-and-butter,"
he said. Then he went on seriously. "It is just here," he said--"you
and I are not sordid. Neither of us cares about money for itself, but
here we are on this earth, with that existence which has its money
price, and obligations imposed upon us. We cannot shirk it. We must
live, and in order to live we must have a certain amount of money.
Now all we have in this world for material goods is this old house
and your little pittance. We have not a cent besides. If we were to
try living on that, it would not last out your lifetime. If it would,
I should not combat your prejudices, but we could lie on our oars and
eat up the old place, and later on I would hustle for myself. But it
will not. Now, I have demonstrated that I cannot earn anything by my
profession. I have tried it faithfully and well. Last year I did not
earn enough to pay my office rent. I never shall in Banbridge, and
there is no sense whatever in my striking out in a new place with no
prestige and no money. You and I simply want enough to live on,
enough money to buy the wherewithal to keep the flame of life
comfortably burning, and I can think of no other way than this
grocery business. People must eat. You are certainly sure of earning
something, if you offer people something they want. In my profession
there is nothing that they do want."

"But your education," said his mother. She thought of the rows of
law-books of whose contents she fondly believed her son a master.

"Oh, that is mine still," said Randolph, "but other people don't want
it. There is no use,