presents enough to put things straight. Last year they were nearly
eighteen dollars, you know."

"Don't you see that Jamie could get that just as well? Jamie can take
the business and make something of it. Father is letting it get worse
and worse every week. We should have one less to feed, and Jamie's
earnings besides. Sandy, _it has got to be_! Do it while we can make
something by the step."

"It is a mean, dastardly step, Sallie. God will never forgive me if I
take it," and David could hear that his son's voice trembled.

In fact, great tears were silently dropping from Sandy's eyes, and his
father knew it, and pitied him, and thanked God that the lad's heart was
yet so tender. And after this he felt strangely calm, and dropped into a
happy sleep.

In the morning he remembered all. He had not heard the end of the
argument, but he knew that Sallie would succeed; and he was neither
astonished nor dismayed when Sandy came home in the middle of the day
and asked him to "go down the avenue a bit."

He had determined to speak first and spare Sandy the shame and the
sorrow of it; but something would not let him do it. In the first
place, a singular lightness of heart came over him; he noticed all the
gay preparations for Christmas, and the cries and bustle of the streets
gave him a new sense of exhilaration. Sandy fell almost unconsciously
into his humor. He had a few cents in his pocket, and he suddenly
determined to go into a cheap restaurant and have a good warm meal with
his father.