to win from him his forty dollars, and then involve him in "debts of
honor," as they are falsely called, which would compel him to draw upon
his father for more money, or abstract it from his employer, a system
which had been pursued by Boyd, and which was discovered only a week
subsequent, when the young man was discharged in disgrace. It then came
out, that he had been for months in secret association with a gambler,
and that the two shared together the spoils and peculations.

This incident roused Thomas Howland to a distinct consciousness of the
danger that lurked in his path, as a young man, in a large city. He
felt, as he had not felt while simply listening to his father's precept,
the value of the word _no_; and resolved that hereafter he would utter
that little word, and that, too, decidedly, whenever urged to do what
his judgment did not approve.

"I will be free!" he said, pacing his chamber backward and forward. "I
will be free, hereafter! No one shall persuade me or drive me to do what
I feel to be wrong."

That conclusion was his safeguard ever after. When tempted, and he was
tempted frequently, his "_No_" decided the matter at once. There was a
power in it that was all-sufficient in resisting evil.




WILLY AND THE BEGGAR GIRL.


"An apple, dear mother!"