e to watch closer than
this. At the end of the next year, I'll not be in doubt about where a
hundred dollars have gone."

It was but rarely, now, that you would hear the name of Peyton
mentioned. Before, everybody said he was a "fine, generous fellow;"
everybody praised him. Now he seemed to be forgotten, or esteemed of no
consideration. He felt this; but he had started to accomplish a certain
end, and he had sufficient strength of mind not to be driven from his
course.

"Have you seen Peyton of late?" I asked, some two years after this
change in his habits. I spoke to one of his old intimate associates.

"No, not for a month of Sundays," was his lightly-spoken reply. "What a
remarkable change has passed over him! Once, he used to be a fine,
generous fellow--his heart was in his hand; but now he is as penurious
as a miser, and even more selfish: he will neither give nor take. If
you happen to be walking with him, and, after waiting as long as
decency will permit to be asked to step in somewhere for refreshments,
you propose something, he meets you with--'No, I thank you, I am not
dry,' or hungry, as the case may be. It's downright savage, it is!"

"This is a specimen of the way in which the world estimates men," said
I to myself, after separating from the individual who complained thus
of Peyton. "The world is wonderfully impartial in its judgment of men's
conduct!"

At the end of five years from the time Peyton reformed his loose
habits, he had saved up and placed out at interest the sum of two
thousand dollars; and this, after having sent to his mother, regularly,
ten dollars every month during the whole period. The fact that he had
saved so much was not suspected by any. It was supposed that he had
laid up some money, but no one thought he had over four or five hundred
dollars.

"I wish you had about three thousand dollars," said Merwin to him, one
day. Merwin's business had turned out well. In five years, he had
cleared over twenty thousand dollars.

"Why?" asked Peyton.

"I know a first-rate chance for you."

"Indeed. Where?"

"There is a very good business that has been fairly established, and is
now languishing for want of a little capital. The man who has made it
will take a partner if he can bring in three thousand dollars, which
would make the whole concern easy, perfectly safe, and sure of success."

"It's more than I have," returned Peyton, in a voice that was slightly
sad.

"So I supposed,"