He was dignified enough, however, on entering the parlor, and so cool you would never have suspected that he almost felt his fate depending upon this gentleman’s business.

He was a Frenchman,—­polite, affable, and of a manner so gracious, you would have said he had come to beg a favor, rather than to grant one.

“This is Mr. ——?  My name is Bonfils.  This is my little boy.  We have come to entreat of you the kindness to take him into your school.”

“I will do so most gladly!” said Salmon, shaking the boy’s hand.

“You are very good.  We shall be greatly indebted to you.  When does your school commence?”

“As soon, Sir, as I shall have engaged a sufficient number of pupils.”

“All! you have not a great number, then?”

“I have none,” Salmon was obliged to confess.

“None?  You surprise me!  I have seen your advertisement, I hear good things said of you,—­why, then, no pupils?”

“I am hardly known yet.  Allow me to count your son here my first, and I have no doubt but others will soon come in.”

“Assuredly!  Make your compliments to Mr. ——­, my son.  I shall interest myself.  I think I shall send you some pupils.  In mean time, my son will wait.”

And with many expressions of good-will the cheerful Monsieur Bonfils withdrew.

This was a gleam of hope.  The door of Providence had opened just a crack.

It opened no farther, however.  No more pupils came.  Salmon waited.  Day after day glided by like sand under his feet.  He could not afford even to advertise now.  He was getting fearfully in debt; and debt is always a nightmare to a generous and upright mind.

“Any pupils yet?” asked Monsieur Bonfils, meeting him, one day, in the street.

“Not one!” said Salmon, with gloomy emphasis.

“Ah, that is unfortunate!”

He expected nothing less than that the Frenchman would add,—­“Then I must place my son elsewhere.”  But no; he was polite as ever; he was charming.

“You should have many before now.  I have spoken for you to my friends.  But patience, my dear Sir.  You will succeed.  In mean time we will wait.”

And with a cordial hand-shake, and a Parisian flourish, he smilingly passed on, leaving a gleam of sunshine on the young man’s path.

Now Salmon was one who would never, if he could help it, abandon an undertaking in which he had once embarked.  But when convinced that persistence was hopeless, then, however reluctantly, he would give it up.  On the present occasion, he was not only spending his time and exhausting his energies in a pursuit which grew each day more and more dubious, but his conscience was stung with the thought that he was wronging others.  Kind as Mrs. Markham was to him, he did not like to look her in the face and feel that he owed her a debt which was always increasing, and which he knew not how he should ever pay.