WHITE & CO. stumbled on a treasure in James Seaton. Your colonial clerk
is not so narrow and apathetic as your London clerk, whose two objects
seem to be to learn one department only, and not to do too much in that;
but Seaton, a gentleman and a scholar, eclipsed even colonial clerks in
this, that he omitted no opportunity of learning the whole business of
White & Co., and was also animated by a feverish zeal that now and then
provoked laughter from clerks, but was agreeable as well as surprising to
White & Co. Of that zeal his incurable passion was partly the cause.
Fortunes had been made with great rapidity in Sydney; and Seaton now
conceived a wild hope of acquiring one, by some lucky hit, before Wardlaw
could return to Helen Rolleston. And yet his common sense said, if I was
as rich as Croesus, how could she ever mate with me, a stained man? And
yet his burning heart said, don't listen to reason; listen only to me.
Try.

And so he worked double tides; and, in virtue of his university
education, had no snobbish notions about never putting his hand to manual
labor. He would lay down his pen at any moment and bear a hand to lift a
chest or roll a cask. Old White saw him thus multiply himself, and was so
pleased that he raised his salary one third.

He never saw Helen Rolleston, except on Sunday. On that day he went to
her church, and sat half behind a pillar and feasted his eyes and his
heart upon her. He lived sparingly, saved money, bought a strip of land
by payment of ten pounds deposit, and sold it in forty hours for one
hundred pounds profit, and watched keenly for similar opportunities on a
larger scale; and all for her. Struggling with a mountain; hoping against
reason, and the world.