SIR: I have been waiting impatiently to hear something about the five hundred dollars in which sum you are indebted to me, on account of a loan which I was fool enough to make you seven years since. I thought you an honest man, but I have found, to my cost, that I was mistaken. For the last year you have even failed to pay interest as stipulated between us. Your intention is evident. I quite understand that you have made up your mind to defraud me of what is rightfully mine. I don't know how you may regard this, but I consider it as bad as highway robbery. I do not hesitate to say that if you had your deserts you would be in the Penitentiary. Let me advise you, if you wish to avoid further trouble, to make no delay in paying a portion of this debt. Yours, etc. EZEKIEL CONANT.
Paul's face flushed with indignation as he read this bitter and cruel letter.
“Does Squire Conant know that you are sick, father?” he inquired.
“Yes, I wrote him about my accident, telling him at the same time that I regretted it in part on account of the interruption which it must occasion in my payments.”
“And knowing this, he wrote such a letter as that,” said Paul, indignantly, “what a hard, unfeeling wretch he must be!”
“I suppose it is vexatious to him to be kept out of his money.”
“But he has plenty more. He would never miss it if he had given it to you outright.”
“That is not the way to look at it, Paul. The money is justly his, and it is a great sorrow to me that I must die without paying it.”
“Father,” said Paul, after a pause, “will it be any relief to you, if I promise to pay it,—that is, if I am ever able?”
Mr. Prescott's face brightened.