“Ay, do, do.  Beat them, defeat them; make them scream with envy.  But I am afraid you are too sanguine.”

“No; I can do it, if you will only give me another word of hope to keep me going; and oh, I need it, if you knew all.”

Grace began to look uneasy.  “Mr. Little, can you doubt that you have my best wishes?” said she, guardedly, and much less warmly than she had spoken just before.

“No, I don’t doubt that; but what I fear is, that, when I have gained the hard battle, and risen in the world, it will be too late.  Too late.”

Grace turned more and more uncomfortable.

“Oh, pray wait a few months, and see what I can do, before you—­”

Will it be believed that Mr. Carden, who seldom came into this room at all, must walk in just at this moment, and interrupt them.  He was too occupied with his own affairs, to pay much attention to their faces, or perhaps he might have asked himself why the young man was so pale, and his daughter so red.

“I heard you were here, Little, and I want to speak to you on a matter of some importance.”

Grace took this opportunity, and made her escape from the room promptly.

Henry, burning inwardly, had to listen politely to a matter he thought pitiably unimportant compared with that which had been broken off.  But the “Gosshawk” had got him in its clutches; and was resolved to make him a decoy duck.  He was to open a new vein of Insurances.  Workmen had hitherto acted with great folly and imprudence in this respect, and he was to cure them, by precept as well as example.

Henry assented, to gratify a person whose good-will he might require, and to get rid of a bore.  But that was not so easy; the “Gosshawk” was full of this new project, and had a great deal to say, before he came to the point, and offered Henry a percentage on the yearly premium of every workman that should be insured in the “Gosshawk.”

This little bargain struck, Henry was left alone; and waited for the return of Miss Carden.

He was simple enough to hope she would come back, and have it out with him.

She kept carefully out of his way, and, at last, he went sadly home.

“Ah,” said he, “Jael gave me bad advice.  I have been premature, and frightened her.”

He would go to work his own way again.

In forty-eight hours he moved into his new house, furnished it partly:  bought a quantity of mediocre wood-carving, and improved it; put specimens in his window, and painted his name over the door.  This, at his mother’s request and tearful entreaties, he painted out again, and substituted “Rowbotham.”

Nor was Rowbotham a mere nom de plume.  It was the real name of Silly Billy.  The boy had some turn for carving, but was quite uncultivated:  Henry took him into his employ, fed him, and made free with his name.  With all this he found time to get a key made to fit the lock of Cairnhope old Church.