“No, I didn’t.  Of course I knew he was honest, but all the same I needed the money.  I wish all my customers was as honest as your folks.”

With this Grant thought it best to be contented.  The time might come again when they would require the forbearance of the grocer; but he did not mean that it should be so if he could help it.  For he was more than ever resolved to give up the project of going to college.  The one hundred and fifty dollars which remained after paying the debts would tide them over a year, but his college course would occupy four; and then there would be three years more of study to fit him for entering a profession, and so there would be plenty of time for the old difficulties to return.  If the parish would increase kis father’s salary by even a hundred dollars, they might get along; but there was such a self-complacent feeling in the village that Mr. Thornton was liberally paid, that he well knew there was no chance of that.

Upon this subject he had more than one earnest conversation with his mother.

“I should be sorry to have you leave home,” she said; “but I acknowledge the force of your reasons.”

“I shouldn’t be happy at college, mother,” responded Grant, “if I thought you were pinched at home.”

“If you were our only child, Grant, it would be different.”

“That is true; but there are Frank and Mary who would suffer.  If I go to work I shall soon be able to help you take care of them.”

“You are a good and unselfish boy, Grant,” said his mother.

“I don’t know about that, mother; I am consulting my own happiness as well as yours.”

“Yet you would like to go to college?”

“If we had plenty of money, not otherwise.  I don’t want to enjoy advantages at the expense of you all.”

“Your Uncle Godfrey will be very angry,” said Mrs. Thornton, thoughtfully.

“I suppose he will, and I shall be sorry for it.  I am grateful to him for his good intentions toward me, and I have no right to expect that he will feel as I do about the matter.  If he is angry, I shall be sorry, but I don’t think it ought to influence me.”

“You must do as you decide to be best, Grant.  It is you who are most interested.  But suppose you make up your mind to enter upon a business career, what chance have you of obtaining a place?”

“I shall call upon Mr. Reynolds, and see if he has any place for me.”

“Who is Mr. Reynolds?” asked his mother, in some surprise.

“I forgot that I didn’t tell you of the gentleman whose acquaintance I made on my way up to the city.  He is a Wall Street broker.  His attention was drawn to me by something that he heard, and he offered to help me, if he could, to get employment.”

“It would cost something to go to New York, and after all there is no certainty that he could help you,” said Mrs. Thornton, cautiously.

“That is true, mother, but I think he would do something for me.”