“I’ll show you right where his office is.  I’ve been in Harrowtown a good many times.”

Half an hour later, the brakeman shouted the name of the station where they must stop.  Lyman assisted Mr. Randal off the train, and walked with him to the principal street.  “Here’s Mr. Harrington’s office,” said he.

“Oh, yes, thank you kindly.  And now could you tell me where Mr. Luke Conway’s place of business is?”

“Why, that’s the very gentleman I’m going to see,” said Lyman.  “His place is just round the corner, only two blocks off.”

Mr. Randal was deeply interested.  He turned and shook the boy’s hand, warmly.  “Lyman,” he said, “Mr. Conway knows me.  I am going to see him by-and-by.  I am really obliged to you for your politeness, and wish I could do something for you.  I hope Mr. Conway will give you the situation, for you deserve it.  If you apply before I get there, tell him Gideon Randal is your friend.  Good-by.”

Fifteen minutes after found Lyman waiting in the counting-room of Luke Conway’s store.  Albert Gregory had just preceded him.  The merchant was writing, and he had requested the boys to be seated a short time, till he was at leisure.  Before he finished his work, a slow, feeble step was heard approaching, and an old man stood in the doorway.

“Luke, don’t you remember me?” The merchant looked up at the sound of the voice.  Then he sprang from his chair and grasped the old man’s hands in both his own.

[Illustration:  “Welcome, my benefactor!”]

“Mr. Randal!  Welcome, a thousand times welcome, my benefactor!” he exclaimed.  Seating his guest, Mr. Conway inquired after his health and comfort, and talked with him as tenderly as a loving son.  It was evident to the quick perception of the merchant that the good old man’s circumstances had changed, and he soon made it easy for him to unburden his mind.

“Yes, Luke, I am in trouble.  Aaron Harrington owns a mortgage on my farm.  I can’t pay him, and he threatens to take my home,” said Mr. Randal, with a quivering lip.  “I went to his office, but didn’t find him, and I thought may be you’d advise me what to do.”

“Mr. Randal,” answered the merchant, laying his hand on the old man’s shoulder, “almost thirty years ago when I was cold, and hungry, and friendless, you took me in and fed me.  Your good wife—­God bless her!—­made me a suit of clothes with her own hands.  You found me work, and you gave me money when I begun the world alone.  Much if not all that I am in life I owe to your sympathy and help, my kind old friend.  Now I am rich, and you must let me cancel my debt.  I shall pay your mortgage to-day.  You shall have your home free again.”

Mr. Randal wiped great hot tears from his cheeks, and said, in a husky voice, “It is just as I told Martha.  I knew, if we lent our money to the Lord, when a dark day came, He would provide.”

The reader can imagine the different feelings of the two boys, as they sat witnesses of the scene.  The look of derision, that changed to an expression of sickly dismay, on Albert’s face, when the old man came in and was so warmly greeted by the merchant, was curiously suggestive.  But his usual assurance soon returned.  He thought it unlikely that Mr. Randal would recognize him in the daylight, and he determined to put on a bold front.