A new day had dawned.  As soon as Mr. Ridley was well enough to be out again he took counsel of friends, and after careful deliberation resolved to leave his native town and remove to the city.  A lawyer of fine ability, and known to the public as a clear thinker and an able debater, he had made quite an impression on the country during his first term in Congress; neither he nor his friends had any doubt as to his early success, provided he was able to keep himself free from the thraldom of old habits.

A few old friends and political associates made up a purse to enable him to remove to the city with his family.  An office was taken and three rooms rented in a small house, where, with his wife and two children, one daughter in her fourteenth year, life was started anew.  There was no room for a servant in this small establishment even if he had been able to pay the hire of one.

So the new beginning was made.  A man of Mr. Ridley’s talents and reputation could not long remain unemployed.  In the very first week he had a client and a retaining fee of twenty-five dollars.  The case was an important one, involving some nice questions of mercantile law.  It came up for argument in the course of a few weeks, and gave the opportunity he wanted.  His management of the case was so superior to that of the opposing counsel, and his citations of law and precedent so cumulative and explicit, that he gained not only an easy victory, but made for himself a very favorable impression.

After that business began gradually to flow in upon him, and he was able to gather in sufficient to keep his family, though for some time only in a very humble way.  Having no old acquaintances in the city, Mr. Ridley was comparatively free from temptation.  He was promptly at his office in the morning, never leaving it, except to go into court or some of the public offices on business, until the hour arrived for returning home.

A new life had become dominant, a new ambition was ruling him.  Hope revived in the heart of his almost despairing wife, and the future looked bright again.  His eyes had grown clear and confident once more and his stooping shoulders square and erect.  In his bearing you saw the old stateliness and conscious sense of power.  Men treated him with deference and respect.

In less than a year Mr. Ridley was able to remove his family into a better house and to afford the expense of a servant.  So far they had kept out of the city’s social life.  Among strangers and living humbly, almost meanly, they neither made nor received calls nor had invitations to evening entertainments; and herein lay Mr. Ridley’s safety.  It was on his social side that he was weakest.  He could hold himself above appetite and deny its cravings if left to the contest alone.  The drinking-saloons whose hundred doors he had to pass daily did not tempt him, did not cause his firm steps to pause nor linger.  His sorrow and shame for the past and his solemn promises and hopes for the future were potent enough to save him from all such allurements.  For him their doors stood open in vain.  The path of danger lay in another direction.  He would have to be taken unawares.  If betrayed at all, it must be, so to speak, in the house of a friend.  The Delilah of “good society” must put caution and conscience to sleep and then rob him of his strength.