He walked about, apparently finding something to do, but in reality watching me. I saw the direction of his eye; and filling my measure, with care that it did not run over, and that not a drop was lost, I emptied it into the poor woman’s jug.
“Never stop to drain it; make quick work; somebody else will want you;” and I followed him into the front room.
“I see he gives good measure,” Mr. Willett said to Jared Peat as he resumed his place at the fire.
“Oh yes, such people are always honest.”
“I don’t know about that,” answered Esquire Clavers. “His father was an honest man, though open-handed and generous, and I have heard say was at one time a gentleman. It’s a pity he drank so.”
They did not seem to mind me at all, and still I felt pleased, although saddened, to hear my father called an honest man, and that at one time he had been in better circumstances. Thus thinking, and wishing that I knew more of his early life, I leaned against the counter, and weighed and tied up sundry packages; for this was, Mr. Willett said, my first work, to tie packages handsomely.
On the day went. My hands were not idle, yet not unfrequently I found my thoughts straying into the future. The vision loomed up with a sudden brightness, a path tending onward in spite of difficulties and temptations.
I did not know what trials would rise up from unseen places, what snares and pitfalls where the flowers grew brightest. But I remembered Mr. Kirby had said, as he climbed the mountain, “One step at a time; and so in life. Do what you have to do well, and God will open a path to something better.”
Little did I then see what He was to do for me; little did I then understand my duty to him; but I thought of him, and felt a certain sense of reliance, a feeling of security, which I have since vainly endeavored to understand.
Near sunset, and just as I was balancing the question, wishing and still fearing to ask Mr. Willett’s permission to study in the evening, Jennie came in, her bright, happy face looking still prettier in a light blue sun-bonnet that Miss Grimshaw had given her. I had only time for a kiss when she asked for Mr. Willett. I showed her to his desk, when she stepped forward and laid a tiny note before him. I saw that his face lit up with a glad surprise, and his eyes sparkled with pleasure as he laid it down.