ott, and I found
him a publisher, and he was soon able to put aside a few pounds and
pay his debts.

Part Eighth

"And now I see with eyes serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller betwixt life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman, nobly planned
To warn and comfort and command;
And yet a spirit too and bright
With something of an angel-light."
--Wordsworth.

When Barty had been six months in England, poor Mr. Gibson's affairs
went suddenly smash. My father saved him from absolute bankruptcy,
and there was lamentation and wailing for a month or so in Conduit
Street; but things were so managed that Mr. Gibson was able to keep
on the "West End firm," and make with it a new start.

He had long been complaining of his cashier, and had to dismiss him
and look out for another; but here his daughter came in and insisted
on being cashier herself--(to her mother's horror).

So she took her place at a railed-in desk at the back of the shop,
and was not only cashier and bookkeeper, but overseer of all things
in general, and was not above seeing any exacting and importunate
customer whom the shopmen couldn't manage.

She actually liked her work, and declared she had found her real
vocation, and quite ceased to regret Tavistock Square.

Her authority in the emporium was even greater than her father's,
who was too fond of being funny. She awed the shopmen into a kind of
affectionate servility, and they were prostrate as before a goddess,
in spite of her never-failing politeness to them.

Customers soon got into a way of asking to see Miss Gibson,
especially when they were accompanied by husbands or brothers or
male friends; and Miss Gibson soon found she sold better than any
shopman, and became one of the notables in the quarter.

All Mr. Gibson's fun came back, and he was as proud of his daughter
as if she'd been proposed to by an earl. But Mrs. Gibson couldn't
help shedding tears over Leah's loss of caste--Leah, on whose beauty
and good breeding she had founded such hopes; it is but fair to add
that she was most anxious to keep the books herself, so that her
daughter might be spared this degradation; for no "gentleman," she
felt sure, would ever propose to her daughter now.

But she was mistaken.

One