"Except youth, health, courage, honour, honesty, and a few other such trifles."
"None of which I can coin into money, however. And your father has expressly told me that without money a tanner can do nothing."
"Unless, as was his own case, he was taken into some partnership where his services were so valuable as to be received instead of capital. True, my father earned little at first, scarcely more than you earn now; but he managed to live respectably, and, in course of time, to marry."
I avoided looking at John as I said the last word. He made no answer, but in a little time he came and leaned over my chair.
"Phineas, you are a wise counsellor—'a brother born for adversity.' I have been vexing myself a good deal about my future, but now I will take heart. Perhaps, some day, neither you nor any one else will be ashamed of me."
"No one could, even now, seeing you as you really are."
"As John Halifax, not as the tanner's 'prentice boy? Oh! lad—there the goad sticks. Here I forget everything unpleasant; I am my own free natural self; but the minute I get back to Norton Bury—however, it is a wrong, a wicked feeling, and must be kept down. Let us talk of something else."
"Of Miss March? She has been greatly better all day."
"She? No, not her to-night!" he said, hurriedly. "Pah! I could almost fancy the odour of these hides on my hands still. Give me a candle."
He went up-stairs, and only came down a few minutes before bed-time.