"Yes, sir, I can, thanks to my poor, dear mother."
"You have lately lost your mother, then?"
"A month that very day when you were kind enough to take me into your house, an unprotected orphan," answered Joseph.
"Where did you go to school?"
"Sir, my mother has been a widow ever since I can remember. She was a daughter of the village schoolmaster, and having to maintain me and herself with her needle, she took the opportunity of her leisure moments to teach me not only how to read and write, but to cast up accounts."
"And did she give you that penny which was in the paper that I saw you unroll so carefully at the door?"
Joseph stood amazed, but at length replied with emotion, and a tear started from his eye:
"Yes, sir, it was the very last penny she gave me."
"Well, Joseph, so satisfied am I with your conduct that not only do I pay you a month's wages willingly for the time you have been here, but I must beg of you to fulfil the duties of collecting clerk to our firm, which situation has become vacant by the death of a very old and faithful assistant."