“It may be something has come between them,” I said; “but he will keep his word if he dies for it, unless—well, no sentimental reason would turn him.”
“What a wonderful man he is!” said Sarah; and then she brought my slippers to me, and came and sat on the arm of my chair and tenderly stroked my weary head.
“And what a wonderful sister you are, and how beautiful you have grown! Some day you will be getting married.”
“No,” she answered, as she put her arms around my neck; “I am going to live with you and mother, if you will let me.”
“There are many fine young fellows who come to see her,” said my mother, who had been sitting near us.
“But I do not care for them,” Sarah answered, as she rose and left us.
Meanwhile the hand-made gentleman was changing. The legislature adjourned in April, and then we saw much of him, and the wear of problems deeper than those I shared had begun to show in his face. Moreover, his plans had changed.
“I shall need you with me at Albany and everywhere,” he said, one evening when we were alone together in the office. “There are plenty of business men, but there is only one Jacob Heron. I've got another man for the shop, and you and I will start for Pittsburg in a day or two.”
“For Pittsburg!”
“Yes; they've asked me to 'look into the subject of rails and signals,'” he went on. “The superintendent of the Western Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad is a man of the name of Andrew Carnegie. He has invented a block-signal system to enable trains to keep their speed with safety. He knows more about iron than any other man in the world, and is the head of the Keystone Bridge Company.