"All right."
So Tip slammed to the door and ran away and Mr. Minturn never knew what a downfall that decision had been to the boy's dear hopes and plans.
It was all settled in the course of a day or two. Mr. Minturn from Albany was very kind. Tip was to have wages that seemed a small fortune to him, and enough had been advanced to get him a new suit of clothes, which his mother made.
One would have supposed that the future would look bright to him; yet it was with a very sad heart that he took his seat in prayer-meeting that Thursday evening, the last time he expected to be in that room for—he didn't know how long. He had a feeling that he ought to be very glad and thankful, and wasn't at all.
Through the opening hymns and prayers his heart kept growing heavier every moment, and it was not until Mr. Holbrook arose, and repeated the text which he had chosen for the evening, that Tip could arouse himself to listen. It was a queer text, so he thought,—"Who shall roll away the stone?" What could Mr. Holbrook be going to say on that? He found out, and had reason to remember it for ever after. As he went out from that meeting, his thoughts, had he spoken them, would have been like these:
"That's true,—I don't believe any man but Mr. Holbrook would ever have thought of it: they worried at a great rate about that stone, how they would get it rolled away, and when they got there it was gone. I'll remember that. I'll do just as he said: when I see a stone ahead of me, I won't stop and fret about it; I'll walk straight up to it, and when I get there maybe it will roll out of my way."
CHAPTER XXIII.
"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver."
Behold Tip, now in Albany, far away from home and friends, from every one that he had ever seen before, save Mr. Howard Minturn, young Howard's uncle. But he had been there some time, and was growing into a settled-at-home feeling. It had been a wonderful change to him. Mr. Minturn did not board his clerks; but for some reason, best known to himself, he had taken Tip home with him. For a few days the boy felt as though the roses on the carpets were made of glass, and would smash if he stepped on them. But he was getting used to it all; he could sit squarely on his chair at the table instead of on the edge, spread his napkin over his lap as the others did, and eat his pie with a silver fork under the light of the sparkling gas.