“The debt is more than paid to my father,” said James. “I have had your example always before me to surmount obstacles and make a man of myself, and now in turn I hope to help you by faithful labor. I have been curious to learn of the ‘friend’ who has sent me money. I have thought over all my father’s acquaintances and cannot decide who it can be.”
“Oh, never mind, James; you will learn sometime perhaps, and it is of no consequence if you do not! The act of giving is what broadens hearts, whether the giver ever be known or not. I promised to keep it a secret.”
The two young men went to live in quiet bachelor quarters together. Work, earnest and absorbing, filled the days and often the evenings.
“I have asked mother and Jenny to spend a few days with us,” said Hugh one evening. “Jenny teaches in a town not far from here, and my good mother has been visiting her, and will stay here a little on her way to West Beverly.”
“That will do us good. I have had so little time to see ladies that it will seem quite a home touch to our bachelor life,” responded James.
Mrs. Wadsworth and her daughter came, and a week passed happily. Jenny was intelligent and charming—how could she be other than lovely with such a mother? The four walked in the evenings, Jenny seeming naturally to be left in the care of James, while Hugh delighted in showing attention to his mother. When mother and daughter had gone home the quiet room seemed desolate. Hugh missed them, but James was absolutely homesick. New York, great and fascinating, had lost its attraction. With the departure of one face the sun seemed to fade out of the sky.
“You seem sad, James,” said Hugh, as they sat together one evening,—he wondered if Jenny’s visit did not have something to do with it,—“and perhaps you better take a few days’ vacation and go home.”
“I am restless and unhappy; I scarcely know why. I think a change would do me good.”
James started the next day for West Beverly, but easily persuaded himself that a call on Jenny Wadsworth at the place where she was teaching, if only for a few hours, would make the journey pleasanter. As he surmised, he felt lighter-hearted after his visit with her, especially as he obtained from her a promise that she would correspond with him.
Mrs. Carter, who idolized her son, was made very happy by his coming. When he returned to the city, work seemed less irksome, letters grew singularly interesting and comforting, till one day James said: