She determined to do her whole duty towards him, and she carefully pointed out to him the sins and the moral danger to which he would be exposed, and warned him always to resist temptation.  She counselled him to think of her when he felt like going astray.

Bobby declared that he would try to be a good boy.  He did not speak contemptuously of the anticipated perils, as many boys would have done, because he knew that his mother would not make bugbears out of things which she knew had no real existence.

The next day, Mr. Hardhand came; and my young readers can judge how astonished and chagrined he was, when the widow Bright offered him the sixty dollars.  The Lord was with the widow and the fatherless, and the wretch was cheated out of his revenge.  The note was given up, and the mortgage cancelled.

Mr. Hardhand insisted that she should pay the interest on the sixty dollars for one day, as it was then the second day of July; but when Bobby reckoned it up, and found it was less than one cent, even the wretched miser seemed ashamed of himself, and changed the subject of conversation.

He did not dare to say any thing saucy to the widow this time.  He had lost his power over her, and there stood Bobby, who had come to look just like a young lion to him, coward and knave as he was.

The business was all settled now, and Bobby spent the rest of the week in getting ready for his great enterprise.  He visited all his friends, and went each day to talk with Squire Lee and Annie.  The little maiden promised to buy a great many books of him, if he would bring his stock to Riverdale, for she was quite as much interested in him as her father was.

Monday morning came, and Bobby was out of bed with the first streak of dawn.  The excitement of the great event which was about to happen had not permitted him to sleep for the two hours preceding; yet when he got up, he could not help feeling sad.  He was going to leave the little black house, going to leave his mother, going to leave the children, to depart for the great city.

His mother was up before him.  She was even more sad than he was, for she could see plainer than he the perils that environed him, and her maternal heart, in spite of the reasonable confidence she had in his integrity and good principles, trembled for his safety.

As he ate his breakfast, his mother repeated the warnings and the good lessons she had before imparted.  She particularly cautioned him to keep out of bad company.  If he found that his companions would lie and swear, he might depend upon it they would steal, and he had better forsake them at once.  This was excellent advice, and Bobby had occasion at a later period to call it to his sorrowing heart.

“Here is three dollars, Bobby; it is all the money I have.  Your fare to Boston will be one dollar, and you will have two left to pay the expenses of your first trip.  It is all I have now,” said Mrs. Bright.