"Come, now, Sam, just listen to a little advice. If you had always treated Ben right you would like him as well as I do. Why should you cherish malice against him? He has good qualities, and so have you, if you'd only give 'em a chance to show themselves."
"That's all gammon," said Sam impatiently.
"What, about your having good qualities?"
"About my ever liking Ben Bradford. Before I'd make a friend of him, I would go without friends."
"You may think differently some time."
On the first of January Ben wrote to his aunt:
"My Dear Aunt: Congratulate me on my good luck. Mr. Porter, this morning, called me into the countingroom, and informed me that henceforth my wages would be eight dollars a week—two dollars more that I have been receiving. I owe this partly to my good luck. I am a favorite of the bookkeeper, who is Mr. Porter's nephew; otherwise, if I had been advanced at all, it would have been only one dollar a week. Don't you think it would have been rather foolish if I had come back and gone into the mill, as you wished me to?"
"After all, I think Ben did right to stay," said Aunt Jane, when she read the letter.
"I wish he'd come home," said Tony. "Then he could play with me."