just so rusted, and good for nothing as a man, are you in danger of
becoming. Don't quit business; don't fall out of your place; don't
pass from useful work into self-corroding idleness, You'll be
miserable--miserable."

The pertinence of this illustration struck the mind of Andy Lovell,
and set him to thinking; and the more he thought, the more disturbed
became his mental state. He had, as we have see, no longer any heart
in his business. All that he desired was obtained--enough to live on
comfortably; why, then, should he trouble himself with
hard-to-please and ill-natured customers? This was one side of the
question.

The rusty knife suggested the other side. So there was conflict in
his mind; but only a disturbing conflict. Reason acted too feebly on
the side of these new-coming convictions. A desire to be at once,
and to escape daily work and daily troubles, was stronger than any
cold judgement of the case.

"I'll find something to do," he said, within himself, and so pushed
aside unpleasantly intruding thoughts. But Mrs. Lovell did not fail
to observe, that since, her husband's determination to go out of
business, he had become more irritable than before, and less at ease
in every way.

The closing day came at last. Andy Lovell shut the blinds before the
windows of his shop, at night-fall, saying, as he did so, but in a
half-hearted, depressed kind of a way, "For the last time;" and then
going inside, sat down in front of the counter, feeling strangely
and ill at ease. The future looked very blank. There was nothing in