other child's compassion in the midst of her comfort and security had
brought his courage up to the point of attack on fate.

"I want to ask you about the mortgage," said Jerome.

The Squire looked at him with quick interest. "The mortgage on your
father's place?"

"Yes, sir."

"Doctor Prescott holds it?"

"Yes, sir."

"How much is it?"

"A thousand dollars." Jerome said that with a gasp of horror and
admiration at the vastness of it. Sometimes to him that thousand
dollars almost represented infinity, and seemed more than the stars
of heaven. His childish brain, which had scarcely contemplated in
verity more than a shilling at a time of the coin of the realm,
reeled at a thousand dollars.

"Well?" observed Squire Merritt, kindly but perplexedly. He wondered
vaguely if the boy had come to ask him to pay the mortgage, and
reflected how little ready money he had in pocket, for Eben Merritt
was not thrifty with his income, which was indeed none too large, and
was always in debt himself, though always sure to pay in time.
Chances were, if Squire Merritt had had the thousand dollars to hand
that morning, he might have thrust it upon the boy, with no further