Mr. Ashley suppressed a smile. "I conclude that you and your brothers live in hope some time of regaining your position in life?"
"Yes, sir. I think it is that hope that makes us put up with hard things so well."
"What do you think of being?"
William's countenance fell. "There is not so much chance of my getting on, sir, as there is for my brothers. Frank and Gar are hopeful enough; but I don't look forward to anything good for me. My mother says if I only help her I shall be doing my duty."
"Your sister died in a decline," remarked Mr. Ashley. "These home privations must have told upon her."
William's face brightened. "She had everything she wanted, sir; everything, even to port wine. Mrs. Reece and Dobbs took a liking to her when they first came, and they never let her want for anything. Mamma says that Jane's wants having been supplied in so extraordinary a manner, ought to teach us how certainly God is looking over us and taking care of us—that all things, when they come to be absolutely needed, will no doubt be supplied to us, as they were to her."
"What a perfect trust in God that boy seems to have!" mused Mr. Ashley, when he dismissed William. "Mrs. Halliburton must be a mother in a thousand. And he will make a man in a thousand, unless I am mistaken. Truthful, open, candid—I don't know a boy like him!"
About five minutes before the great bell was rung at one o'clock, William was called into the counting-house. "I have been casting up my cash and find I am a shilling short," observed Mr. Ashley, "therefore the shilling that you found is no doubt the missing one. I shall give it to you," he continued: "a reward for telling me the straightforward truth when I questioned you."
William took the shilling—as he supposed. "Here are two!" he exclaimed, in his surprise.
"You cannot buy much tea with one; and that is what you were thinking of. Would you like to be apprenticed to me?" Mr. Ashley resumed, drowning the boy's thanks.