so, would no doubt relate a harder life than yours can ever be. This should only serve to make you stronger."
"If Mr. Delancey was only a different-tempered man, perhaps I could do better. If he had sympathized with me, and assured me kindly of his belief that it was all an accident, oh, I would have felt so differently, so happy in comparison! There is no pleasure in serving such a man; it is only rigid duty, rigidly performed, for one you cannot but hate. He is never so happy as when mixing gall with the honey of one's happiness. I am miserable, Guly, miserable! and I can't rouse myself. I wish I was as meek and forbearing as you are, I could be happier; my pride, my strong unbending pride, has been, and ever will be, my curse."
Arthur's tones seemed to struggle up so heavily in his sorrow, from his heart's depths, that Guly felt strongly inclined to tell him there were very few, however meek and charitable, who would submit to an insult of this kind quietly; but he remembered his promise to Wilkins, and refrained.
"If I could reason with Mr. Delancey, if he would talk with me as it is his duty to talk with me, I am sure he would think differently upon the matter; but for me to stay here for the ensuing year, as I now am forced to do, whether or no; and for me to feel that every time those cold eyes are turned upon me, they believe themselves to
be looking on a thief! Oh, my God! Guly, it is too much!"
Arthur was intensely excited, and the veins in his forehead stood out like cords, so swollen were they, and his face was deeply flushed.
Guly's heart ached for him, and he was trying to think of something which he could say to comfort him, when he was called away by a customer, and, with a kindly pressure upon his brother's hand, he left his side.
Arthur also stepped back to his place; but every attitude he assumed, every changing expression of his handsome face, told the restless misery of that young heart, and the crushing weight upon that lofty spirit.
Guly waited anxiously for night to come, that he might talk to, and try to encourage, Arthur. When the lamps were lighted, and the customers had gradually thinned out, he was about to cross over and speak to him. To his surprise he saw that his place was vacant, and he was nowhere to be seen. A sharp pang went through the boy's heart, succeeded by a sickening faintness; and he leaned against the counter for support, filled with undefined fears of sorrow, and danger, and unhappiness.
With a blush at his apparently causeless emotion, he stepped to the clerk who always stood next to Arthur, and inquired if he knew where he had gone.