And so this matter being settled, Henry Wallingford remained in the office of Judge Bigelow.  The fact of being salaried by the Judge, stimulated him to new efforts, and made him forward to relieve his kind preceptor of all duties within the range of his ability.  There came, during the next year, an unusually large amount of office practice—­preparing deeds, making searches, and drawing up papers of various kinds.  In doing this work, Henry was rapid and reliable.  So, when Squire Floyd tendered his proportion of the young man’s salary to his neighbor, the Judge declined receiving it.  The Squire urged; but the Judge said—­

“No; Henry has earned his salary, and I must pay it, in simple justice.  I did not think there was so much in him.  Business has increased, and without so valuable an assistant, I could not get along.”

So the way had opened before Henry Wallingford, and he was on the road to a successful manhood.  At the time of his introduction to the reader, he was in his twenty-third year.  On attaining his majority, he had become so indispensable to Judge Bigelow, who had the largest practice in the county, that no course was left for him but to offer the young man a share in his business.  It was accepted; and the name of Henry Wallingford was thenceforth displayed in gilt letters, in the office window of his preceptor.

From that time, his mind never rested with anything like care or anxiety on the future.  His daily life consisted in an almost absorbed devotion to his professional duties, which grew steadily on his hands.  His affection was in them, and so the balance of his mind was fully sustained.  Ah, if we could all thus rest, without anxiety, on the right performance of our allotted work!  If we would be content to wait patiently for that success which comes as the orderly result of well-doing in our business, trades, or professions, what a different adjustment would there be in our social condition and relations!  There would not be all around us so many eager, care-worn faces—­so many heads bowed with anxious thought—­so many shoulders bent with burdens, destined, sooner or later, to prove too great for the strength which now sustains them.  But how few, like Henry Wallingford, enter with anything like pleasure into their work!  It is, in most cases, held as drudgery, and regarded only as the means to cherished ends in life wholly removed from the calling itself.  Impatience comes as a natural result.  The hand reaches forth to pluck the growing fruit ere it is half ripened.  No wonder that its taste is bitter to so many thousands.  No wonder that true success comes to so small a number—­that to so many life proves but a miserable failure.

CHAPTER VII.