d the room,--Widow Crane's best bedroom. It was
dimly lighted by an extremely ugly lamp. The hideous stuffy bed curtains
and the more hideous imitation marble mantel were the two objects that
held her glance. There was no change in her calm demeanor. But Stephen,
who knew his mother, felt that her little elation over her arrival had
ebbed, Neither would confess dejection to the other.

"I--even I--" said Stephen, tapping his chest, "have at least made the
acquaintance of one prominent citizen, Mr. Eliphalet D. Hopper. According
to Mr. Dickens, he is a true American gentleman, for he chews tobacco. He
has been in St. Louis five years, is now assistant manager of the largest
dry goods house, and still lives in one of Miss Crane's four-dollar
rooms. I think we may safely say that he will be a millionaire before I
am a senator."

He paused.

"And mother?"

"Yes, dear."

He put his hands in his pockets and walked over to the window.

"I think that it would be better if I did the same thing."

"What do you mean, my son--"

"If I went to work,--started sweeping out a store, I mean. See here,
mother, you've sacrificed enough for me already. After paying father's
debts, we've come out here with only a few thousand dollars, and the nine
hundred I saved out of this year's Law School allowance. What shall we do
when that is gone? The honorable legal profession, as my friend reminded
me to-night, is not the swiftest road to millions."

With a mother's discernment she guessed the agitation, he was striving to
hide; she knew that he had been gathering courage for this moment for
months. And she knew that he was renouncing thus lightly, for her sake an
ambition he had had from his school days.

Widow passed her hand over her brow. It was a space before she answered
him.

"My son," she said, let us never speak of this again:

"It was your father's dearest wish that you should become a lawyer and
--and his wishes are sacred God will take care of us."

She rose and kissed him good-night.

"Remember, my dear, when you go to Judge Whipple in the morning, remember
his kindness, and--."

"And keep my temper. I shall, mother."

A while later he stole gently back into her room again. She was on her
knees by the walnut bedstead.

At nine the next manning Stephen left Miss Crane's, girded for the
struggle with the redoubtable Silas Whipple. He was not afraid, but a
poor young man as an applicant to a notorious dragon is not