trouble. I have an engagement to meet, and must go.”
“Stop, madam!” said Mr. Clifton, sternly, interposing an obstacle to her departure, “we can’t spare you yet.”
“I really must go, sir. I give up all claim to the pearls.”
“That is not sufficient. You have laid claim to them, knowing that they were not yours. Officer, have you ever seen this woman before?”
“Yes, sir, I know her well.”
“How dare you insult me?” demanded Mrs. Simpson; but there was a tremor in her voice.
“I give her in charge for an attempted swindle,” said Mr. Clifton.
“You will have to come with me, madam,” said the policeman. “You may as well go quietly.”
“Well, the game is up,” said the woman, with a careless laugh.
“It came near succeeding, though.”
“Now, my boy,” said the jeweler, “I will attend to your business. You want to sell these pearls?”
“Yes, sir; they are of no use to mother, and she needs the money.”
“At what do you value them?”
“I leave that to you, sir. I shall be satisfied with what you think them worth.”
The jeweler examined them attentively. After his examination was concluded, he said: “I am willing to give four hundred dollars for them. Of course they cost more, but I shall have to reset them.”
“That is more than I expected,” said Grant, joyfully. “It will pay all our debts, and give us a little fund to help us in future.”
“Do you wish the money now? There might be some risk in a boy like you carrying so much with you.”
“What would you advise, Mr. Clifton?”
“That you take perhaps a hundred dollars, and let me bring the balance next Saturday night, when I come to pass Sunday at Colebrook.”
“Thank you, sir; if it won’t be too much trouble for you.”
CHAPTER VIII – GRANT TAKES A DECISIVE STEP
Grant came home a messenger of good tidings, as his beaming face plainly showed. His mother could hardly believe in her good fortune, when Grant informed her that he had sold the pearls for four hundred dollars.
“Why, that will pay up all your father’s debts,” she said, “and we shall once more feel independent.”
“And with a good reserve fund besides,” suggested Grant.
On Saturday evening he called on Mr. Clifton, and received the balance of the purchase money. On Monday, with a little list of creditors, and his pocket full of money, he made a round of calls, and paid up everybody, including Mr. Tudor.
“I told you the bill would be paid, Mr. Tudor,” he said, quietly, to the grocer.
“You mustn’t feel hard on me on account of my pressing you, Grant,” said the grocer, well pleased, in a conciliatory tone. “You see, I needed money to pay my bills.”
“You seemed to think my father didn’t mean to pay you,” said Grant, who could not so easily get over what he had considered unfriendly conduct on the part of Mr. Tudor.
“No, I didn’t. Of course I knew he was honest, but all the same I needed the money. I wish all my customers was as honest as your folks.”
With this Grant thought it best to be contented. The time might come again when they would require the forbearance of the grocer; but he did not mean that it should be so if he could help it. For he was more than ever resolved to give up the project of going to college. The one hundred and fifty dollars which remained after paying the debts would tide them over a year, but his college course would occupy four; and then there would be three years more of study to fit him for entering a profession, and so there would be plenty of time for the old difficulties to return. If the parish would increase kis father’s salary by even a hundred dollars, they might get along; but there was such a self-complacent feeling in the village that Mr. Thornton was liberally paid, that he well knew there was no chance of that.
Upon this subject he had more than one earnest conversation with his mother.
“I should be sorry to have you leave home,” she said; “but I acknowledge the force of your reasons.”
“I shouldn’t be happy at college, mother,” responded Grant, “if I thought you were pinched at home.”
“If you were our only child, Grant, it would be different.”
“That is true; but there are Frank and Mary who would suffer. If I go to work I shall soon be able to help you take care of them.”
“You are a good and unselfish boy, Grant,” said his mother.
“I don’t know about that, mother; I am consulting my own happiness as well as yours.”
“Yet you would like to go to college?”
“If we had plenty of money, not otherwise. I don’t want to enjoy advantages at the expense of you all.”
“Your Uncle Godfrey will be very angry,” said Mrs. Thornton, thoughtfully.
“I suppose he will, and I shall be sorry for it. I am grateful to him for his good intentions toward me, and I have no right to expect that he will feel as I do about the matter. If he is angry, I shall be sorry, but I don’t think it ought to influence me.”
“You must do as you decide to be best, Grant. It is you who are most interested. But suppose you make up your mind to enter upon a business career, what chance have you of obtaining a place?”
“I shall call upon Mr. Reynolds, and see if he has any place for me.”
“Who is Mr. Reynolds?” asked his mother, in some surprise.
“I forgot that I didn’t tell you of the gentleman whose acquaintance I made on my way up to the city. He is a Wall Street broker. His attention was drawn to me by something that he heard, and he offered to help me, if he could, to get employment.”
“It would cost something to go to New York, and after all there is no certainty that he could help you,” said Mrs. Thornton, cautiously.
“That is true, mother, but I think he would do something for me.”
However Grant received a summons to New York on other business. Mrs. Simpson, as she called herself, though she had no right to the name, was brought up for trial, and Grant was needed as a witness. Of course his expenses were to be paid. He resolved to take this opportunity to call at the office of Mr. Reynolds.
I do not propose to speak of Mrs. Simpson’s trial. I will merely say that she was found guilty of the charge upon which she had been indicted, and was sentenced to a term of imprisonment.
When Grant was released from his duties as witness, he made his way to Wall Street, or rather New Street, which branches out from the great financial thoroughfare, and had no difficulty
