"Well, mother, you always know how to talk me over, When I came in
to-night I did think that I would never go the shop again. But I
will promise you to be patient and industrious still. Considering
all that you have, done for me, this is little enough for me to do
for you. When I have a shop of my own, you shall live like a lady.
I'll trust to your word that I shall be sure to get on, if I am
patient and industrious, though I don't see how it's to be.--It's
not so very bad to bear after all; and, bad as my master is, there's
one comfort, he lets me have my Saturday nights and blessed Sundays
with you. Well, I feel happier now, and I think I can eat my supper.
We forgot that my porridge was getting cold all this time."

Stephen kept his word; day after day, and month after month, his
patience and industry never flagged. And plenty of trials, poor
fellow, he had for his fortitude. His master, a small stationer in a
small country town, to whom Stephen was bound apprentice for five
years, with a salary barely sufficient to keep him in clothes, was a
little, spare, sharp-faced man, who seemed to have worn himself away
with continual fretfulness and vexation. He was perpetually
fretting, perpetually finding fault with something or other,
perpetually thinking that everything was going wrong. Though he did
cease to go into a passion with, and to strike Stephen, the poor lad
was an object always at hand, on which to vent his ill-humour, Many,
many times was Stephen on the point of losing heart and temper; but
he was always able to control himself by thinking of his mother.
And, as he said, there was always comfort in those Saturday nights
and blessed Sundays. A long walk in the country on those blessed
Sundays, and the Testament readings to his mother, would always
strengthen his often wavering faith in her prophecies of good in the
end, would cheer his spirits, and nerve him with a fresh resolution