He sent out for an assortment of new ones, from which, with unnecessary lavishness, he chose and kept three or four pairs.  All the rest of the day, nevertheless, those sorry Congress boots of Crombie’s, which he had directed his office-boy to place beside the soft-coal fire, for drying, faced him with a sort of haunting look.  However much he might be occupied with weightier matters, he could not keep his eyes from straying in that direction; and whenever they rested on that battered “right” and that way-worn “left,” turned up in that mute, appealing repose and uselessness at the fender, his thoughts recurred to his early years of trial and poverty.  Ah! how greatly he had changed since then!  On some accounts he could almost wish that he were poor again.  But when he remembered Blanche, he was glad, for her sake, that he was rich.

But if for her sake, why not for others?  Perhaps he had been rather selfish, not only about Blanche, but toward her.  His conscience began to reproach him.  Had he made for her a large life?  Since her mother’s premature death, had he instilled into her sympathies, tastes, companionships that would make her existence the richer?  Had he not kept her too much to himself?  On the other hand, he had gratified all her material wants; she could wear what she pleased, she could go where she chose, she had acquaintances of a sort becoming to the daughter of a wealthy man.  Yet there was something lacking.  What did she know about old, used-up boots and all that pertains to them?  What did she know about indigence, real privation, and brave endurance, such as a hundred thousand fellow-creatures all around her were undergoing?

Somehow it dawned upon the old banker that if she knew about all these things and had some share in them, albeit only through sympathy and helping, she might be happier, more truly a woman, than she was now.

As he sat alone, in revery, he actually heaved a deep sigh.  A sigh is often as happy a deliverance as a laugh, in this world of sorrows.  It was the first that had escaped Littimer in years.  Let us say that it was a breathing space, which gave him time for reflection; it marked the turning of a leaf; it was the beginning of a new chapter in his life.

Before he left the bank he locked the door of the private parlor, and was alone for two or three minutes.  The office boy was greatly puzzled the next morning, when he found all the new pairs of shoes ranged intact in the adjoining cupboard.  The old ones were missing.

Littimer had gone away in them, furtively.  He was ashamed of his own impulse.

This time he resolutely remained afoot instead of hiring a carriage.  He despatched a messenger to Blanche, saying that sudden business would prevent his returning to dinner, and continued indefinitely on his way—­whither?  As to that he was by no means certain; he knew only that he must get out of the beaten track, out of the ruts.  For an hour or two he must cease to be Littimer, the prosperous moneyed man, and must tread once more the obscure paths through which he had made his way to fortune.  He could hardly have explained the prompting which he obeyed.  Could it have had anything to do with the treacherous holes in the bottoms of those old shoes?