"Am I?" asked Richard, smiling, yet well pleased with the compliment.
"Why, you can read French as fast as I can read English, and write beautifully."
"Well, I had to work hard to do it," said Richard Hunter. "But I feel paid for all the time I've spent in trying to improve myself. Sometimes I've thought I should like to spend the evening at some place of amusement rather than in study; but if I had, there'd be nothing to show for it now. Take my advice, Mark, and study all you can, and you'll grow up respectable and respected."
"Now," he added, after a pause, "I'll tell you what you may do. You may look in my 'Herald' every morning, and whenever you see a boy advertised for you can call, or whenever, in going along the street, you see a notice 'Boy wanted,' you may call in, and sooner or later you'll get something. If they ask for references, you may refer to Richard Hunter, book-keeper for Rockwell & Cooper."
"Thank you, Mr. Hunter," said Mark. "I will do so."
On parting with his guardian the match boy went down town to the Lodging House. The superintendent received him kindly.
"I didn't know what had become of you, Mark," he said. "If it had been some of the boys, I should have been afraid they had got into a scrape, and gone to the Island. But I didn't think that of you."
"I hope you'll never hear that of me, Mr. O'Connor," said Mark.
"I hope not. I'm always sorry to hear of any boy's going astray. But you seem to have been doing well since I saw you;" and the superintendent glanced at Mark's new clothes.