The move was made, and Miss Winchester, being an attractive, sensible woman, found plenty of work as seamstress in wealthy families; thus she was enabled to send Gerald to school until he was fourteen years of age, and had entered the second year of the high-school course.
But, one morning, the lad had found his best, and almost only friend, lying cold and still in her bed. She had died of heart-disease during the night, and thus he was left alone and destitute in the world, for the woman’s annuity ceased with her life.
The boy broke up their home, where they had been so quietly happy and comfortable for several years, selling off all their furniture, with the exception of an old-fashioned cricket, which his aunt had, upon one or two occasions, charged him never to part with, since it was a precious heirloom, having been brought from England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth by a remote ancestor.
It was a queer-looking, rather clumsy affair, of solid mahogany, having claw feet tipped with brass, its surface upholstered with some bright, silk patchwork, which Miss Winchester had made to replace a former defaced covering.
Gerald had almost a mind to let the thing go with the other household goods, in spite of his aunt’s wish, for he felt that it would never be anything but a burden to him; but he finally stowed it away in the bottom of a trunk, which contained all he possessed in the world, and removing to a small, cheap room, started forth to seek a situation where he could earn his own living.
At first he was cash-boy in one of the large stores of the city; later he was office boy for an eminent physician, and finally drifted into Adam Brewster’s banking-house, where he had remained until now, working slowly and steadily upward, gaining his employer’s confidence and favor, until he had proved himself so capable, trustworthy, and faithful that the man regarded him almost in the light of a confidential clerk.
From time to time the banker, pitying his homeless and friendless condition, had invited him to his own home, where he had spent many a delightful hour with Allison, who, from the first, had conceived a strong friendship for the handsome, manly fellow.
For a long time Mr. Brewster did not once think that any serious result would be likely to follow this “boy-and-girl acquaintance.” Allison, his idolized daughter, was happy to have Gerald come to tea; to drive with her in the park on Saturday afternoons or holidays; to have him to dinner with them now and then on Sundays, and he was ever indulgent to her lightest wish.
But of late—during the last five or six months—he had suddenly awakened to the fear that there might be danger ahead if these relations were continued.