In a snug home in a suburb of New York City dwells "Dodd" Weaver with
his faithful and devoted wife. They have one child, a boy, named
Charles Bright. Their home is happy and full of the sunlight of love.
"Dodd" is devoted to his profession, and serves it faithfully. He has
a marked talent in his calling, and is succeeding well. He may never
become famous, but what is fame? He is earning an honest and excellent
living, and that is much for one with his start in life.

He looks over the path he has come with thankfulness as well as with
horror. He hopes, too, that when his own son shall come to go by the
highway of life, he may be able to take him by the hand and lead him
along the dangerous places that he found along the road, or, at least,
to point out the pitfalls for the child, and so save him from the evil
that so sorely, beset himself.

But every day, the thing that now looms up through the life of this now
busy man is the personal character and influence of his old teacher,
Mr. Bright. This never leaves him nor forsakes him. It is like an
anchor to his soul. It saved him from total wreck in his voyage of
life. It held him from ruin when the waves and billows swept over him.
Why should he not revere such a source of help; such an everlasting
tower of strength?

But his memory of the machine brings no such consolation or help. Why
should it? Answer, if you can, you who have faith in the mill itself,
or whose business it is to make it grind.

As "Dodd" touches his brush to a bit of ruddy color on the pallet at
his side and tinges the cheeks of a beautiful face that smiles from the