"I know," said Ray, for Edward had stopped doubtfully; "I understand just how you feel; but I do think the feeling, in this case at least, is wrong; and, my dear brother, you will be glad when you know how thankful you have made me."
"Yes; and after all you will not be doing any more for me—you can't—than you have done. I think money is very little, compared with that. Ray," and Edward sank down among the cushions in front of him, "I do believe you are more to me than any other human being ever will be."
Ray smiled, quite as if he did not think so, but would not unsay it for anything.
"It is all right," he said gently, after a little silence. "I think you will do so much more than I ever could have done. God bless you, my dear brother!"
After that Edward went up to his room, got out his little red Bible, his precious lamp, and, opening at the history of the rock-bound grave, read on until he came to the verse, "And when they looked, they saw that the stone was rolled away." Around this he made heavy marks with his pencil, thinking, meantime, that the angel of the Lord was still at work on earth.
"Bob," said Edward, stopping before Bob's counter, two days after this matter was settled, "I am going to start for home in the morning."
"Are you, though?" Bob answered eagerly, stopping his work to take the sentence in fully. "My! I wish I was going along, just to see what folks would say."
"About you, do you mean?" said Edward, laughing, and thinking wonderingly, as well as joyfully, of the change which there had been in Bob Turner.
Bob had a counter too, and was no longer an errand-boy; there had very rarely been known such a rapid promotion in that store; but the truth was, Mr. Minturn had early learned that Bob Turner was destined to be, not a minister, nor a lawyer, not even a scholar, but a thorough, energetic, successful merchant. He had no sooner made this discovery than he determined to give the boy a chance.
So Bob had earned a name and a place in the store, and was a general favourite with the other clerks, and was beginning to have customers who sought him out, and liked to make purchases of him. More than all, Bob was an earnest Christian; his loving tenderness for, and almost worship of, Ray Minturn, kept him from being much led into temptation, and his influence over the younger clerks was growing to be for good. He was destined to be more popular than Edward had been; for Edward had risen too rapidly, and was too much at home with the entire Minturn family, not to be looked upon with some degree of envy.