“I’ll do whatever you think best, doctor.”

“Then I think this is a good opening for you.  Mr. Graves wants to retire from business before long.  Probably by the time you are twenty-one he will leave everything in your hands.  You will be paid weekly wages and perhaps be entitled to a portion of the profits—­more than enough to support you all comfortably.  What do you say?  Shall we have a new firm in the village?

“Graves& Burke.”

Andy’s eyes sparkled with proud anticipation.  It was so far above any dream he had ever formed.

“It’s what I’d like above all things,” he said.  “Oh, what will mother say?  I must go and tell her.”

“Go, by all means, Andy, and when you have told her, come back, and I’ll go over with you to Mr. Graves’ store, and we’ll talk over the arrangements with him.”

Mrs. Burke’s delight at her own success and that of Andy may be imagined.  She, too, had been getting despondent, and it seemed almost like a fairy tale to find herself the owner of a house, and her boy likely to be taken into partnership with the principal trader in the village.  She invoked blessings on the memory of Colonel Preston, through whose large-hearted generosity this had come to pass, but could not help speculating on what Mrs. Preston would say.  She understood very well that she would be very angry.

Mrs. Preston did not dispute the will.  She might have done so, but for her fear that her own criminal act would be brought to light.  Godfrey, who was even more disturbed than she was at the success of “that low Irish boy,” begged her to do it, but in this case she did not yield to his entreaties.  She had never dared to take him into confidence respecting her destruction of the other will.

While we are upon this subject, we may as well trace out the future career of Mrs. Preston.  Some years later she was induced, by the expectation of aiding her social standing, to marry an adventurer who appeared to be doing a flourishing business as a State Street broker.  By spurious representations, he managed to get hold of her property, and to be appointed Godfrey’s guardian.  The result may be foreseen.  He managed to spend or waste the whole and when Godfrey was twenty-one, he and his mother were penniless.  Andy, who was now sole representative of the firm of Graves & Burke, and in receipt of an excellent income, heard of the misfortunes of his old enemy, and out of regard to the memory of his old benefactor voluntarily offered Mrs. Preston an allowance of five hundred dollars.  It cost her pride a great deal to accept this favor from the boy she had looked down upon as “only an Irish boy,” but her necessity was greater than her pride, and she saw no other way of escaping the poorhouse.  So she ungraciously accepted.  But Andy did not care for thanks.  He felt that he was doing his duty, and he asked no other reward than that consciousness.  Mrs. Preston