enry was rapid and reliable. So,
when Squire Floyd tendered his proportion of the young man's salary to
his neighbor, the Judge declined receiving it. The Squire urged; but the
Judge said--

"No; Henry has earned his salary, and I must pay it, in simple justice.
I did not think there was so much in him. Business has increased, and
without so valuable an assistant, I could not get along."

So the way had opened before Henry Wallingford, and he was on the road
to a successful manhood. At the time of his introduction to the reader,
he was in his twenty-third year. On attaining his majority, he had
become so indispensable to Judge Bigelow, who had the largest practice
in the county, that no course was left for him but to offer the young
man a share in his business. It was accepted; and the name of Henry
Wallingford was thenceforth displayed in gilt letters, in the office
window of his preceptor.

From that time, his mind never rested with anything like care or anxiety
on the future. His daily life consisted in an almost absorbed devotion
to his professional duties, which grew steadily on his hands. His
affection was in them, and so the balance of his mind was fully
sustained. Ah, if we could all thus rest, without anxiety, on the
right performance of our allotted work! If we would be content to
wait patiently for that success which comes as the orderly result of
well-doing in our business, trades, or professions, what a different
adjustment would there be in our social condition and relations! There
would not be all around us so many eager, care-worn faces--so many
heads bowed with anxious thought--so many shoulders bent with burdens,
destined, sooner or later, to prove too great for the strength which now
sustains them. But how few, like Henry Wallingford, enter with anything
like pleasure into their work! It is, in most cases, held as drudgery,
and regarded only as the means to cherished ends in life wholly removed
from the calling itself. Impatience comes as a natural result. The hand
reaches forth to pluck the growing fruit ere it is half ripened. No
wonder that its taste is bitter to so many thousands. No wonder that
true success comes to so small a number--that to so many life proves but
a miserable failure.

CHAPTER VII.

The morning which broke after that night of storm was serene and
beautiful. The air had a crystal clearness, and as you looked away up
into the cloudless azure, it seemed as if the eye