y," he said; "there's writing things in yonder desk. I'll
read the paper while you transact business."

Sandy was strangely sensitive to tones and expressions and now he
turned to Markham.

"I want--my father to know I'm all right, sir," he said quietly. "If
he knows that--he can wait till--I go back."

Suddenly the long stretches on beyond staggered Sandy and his thin face
quivered.

"Then--there is----" Somehow an explanation seemed imperative to this
man who was making life possible for him. There had never been any
intimacy before, but something compelled it now; "a--a girl, sir. She
helped me--earn money. She's--different from me--she's--quality, but
she'd like to know, too."

Levi shifted his newspaper so that it walled Sandy's grim face from
view.

"What's to hinder you making quality of yourself?" he asked. He was a
man that liked his beneficiaries to succeed, and while Sandy interested
him, in spite of himself, he disliked the boy's humility. There was
something final and foreordained about it, and unless it were
discouraged it might prevent what Markham was beginning to very much
desire.

"Quality, sir, is not made. It--is!"

Levi grunted, and Bob, paying a visit to the room on sufferance,
snarled resentfully.

"You cut that out, boy!" Markham snapped; "in Yankeeland it doesn't go.
Massachusetts gives a good many things besides an education for good
honest work: it gives opportunity for the man to grow in every human
soul. We don't apologize for ourselves by digging up our ancestors--we
only exhume them to back us up. By the time you go home you can stand
up to the best of them in your hills--if it's in you to stand. It all
lies with you. Now write your letters and leave all foolishness out.
Afterward I have a plan to propose."

So Sandy painfully scratched his two notes off and sealed and addressed
them. Then he waited for Markham's further notice.

The day was cool and fine, but the heated air of the room made an open
window necessary. By that Sandy sat and looked out upon the big,
seething city of which he was so horribly afraid. It smothered and
crowded him; its noises and smells sickened him. The few excursions he
had made with his projectors had left him pale and panting. He made no
complaints--he realized that he was on the wheel, and must cling how
and as he might, but he shrank mentally at every proposition that he
should leave his room. The crowds of people appalled