Mr. Malcolm went to the store of Mr. Elder, one of the vestrymen, and found him quite busy with customers. He waited for half an hour for him to be disengaged, and then went out, saying, as he passed him at the counter, that he would call in again.
"Oh, dear!" he murmured to himself, with a long-drawn sigh, as he emerged upon the street, "is not this humiliating? If I had engaged for only four hundred dollars a year, I would have lived on bread and water rather than have exceeded my income; but at least seven hundred were promised. It was, however, an informal promise; and I was wrong, perhaps, in trusting to any thing so unsettled as this. Of course, it will be paid to me when I make known my present situation; but the doing of that I shrink from."
"Mr. T— was here again for his bill," were the first words that saluted the ears of the minister when he returned home.
"What did you say to him?" he asked.
"I told him that you would settle it very soon. He said he hoped you would, for he wanted money badly, and it had been running for some time."
"He was rude, then!"
"A little so," replied the wife, in a meek voice.
Mr. Malcolm paced the floor with rapid steps; he felt deeply disturbed.
An hour afterwards, he entered the store of Mr. Elder, and found the owner disengaged. He did not linger in preliminaries, but approached the subject thus:—
"You remember, Mr. Elder, that in the interview I had with you and two of the vestry previous to my accepting the call of this parish, you stated that my income would not be limited to the four hundred dollars named as the minister's salary, which I then told you was a smaller sum than I could possibly live upon?"