So you can," returned Fred, composedly.

Mr. Critchet brightened up. I looked at my friend anxiously, and feared
that he had forgotten our agreement on the subject under discussion.

"The fact is," said Fred, knocking the ashes from his pipe, "if you wish
to deserve our friendship, never speak again in reference to the subject
of a recompense."

"But--" exclaimed the old man.

"No buts about it. You sought our house as a refuge for safety, and if
you found it, none can be more satisfied than ourselves. The first night
I saw your gray hairs I thought of my dead father, and I determined to
do all that I could for the honor of his name. God bless his memory--he
was a good man, and I am certain that if his spirit is allowed to visit
this earth, it would approve of my conduct."

"Then all recompense is refused?" demanded our guest, after a moment's
silence.

"Decidedly so."

"Then let me make a proposition to this effect: My claim is lying idle,
and is probably half full of water. I feel that I am not strong enough
to work it, and will tend the store until well, and one or both of you
can take my mine and carry it on, and, if you choose, divide the
profits between us three. By such a process you will be spared from
being under pecuniary obligations to me, and I shall feel as though I
was in some measure, however slight, repaying the expense of my board
and lodging."

How carefully the old gentleman concealed the fact, that the mine which
he owned, and had partially worked, was one of the most valuable, in
Ballarat, and that it we consented to the arrangement we should, in all
probability, make two or three thousand pounds with but a trifling
amount of labor!

"If you will do as I wish," Mr. Critchet continued, "I shall feel as
though I was not intruding upon your privacy, or upon your generosity.
If my offer is not accepted, then to-morrow I return to my tent, and
trouble you no more."

"But consider," I said, "you have no knowledge of storekeeping, and will
make but a poor clerk for attending upon these rough miners."

"My dear boy," our guest exclaimed, "before you were born, as a British
merchant, I sold thousands of pounds worth of West India goods; and
should now, if I had my rights, be in possession of a princely fortune.
Do not think that I am speaking boastingly, for I am humble. All pride,
excepting the love of honesty, and a desire to see my family once more
in comfortable circumstances, has left me;