After some reflection, finding his nephew very differently situated from what he had supposed, Mr. Stanton, with the concurrence of his wife, whose opinion also had been changed, sent an invitation to Ralph and Herbert to dine with them previous to their sailing for Europe.  Herbert, by his new guardian’s direction, returned a polite reply, to the effect that they were too busy in making preparations for their departure to accept the invitation.  Ralph did not feel like sitting as the guest of a man who had cruelly defrauded him, and had only done him justice when he was actually compelled to do so.

In due time our hero sailed for Europe with Mr. Ralph Pendleton.  They divided their time between Paris and Berlin, Herbert studying at both places.  With his natural good abilities, he made rapid progress, and at the end of four years was an accomplished scholar, able to speak both French and German with facility.  In watching his progress, Ralph Pendleton found a new and fresh interest in life.  He recovered from his old, morbid feeling, and became cheerful and happy.  On returning to New York, Herbert, who felt that he should enjoy a life of business better than a professional career, entered the counting-room of Mr. Godfrey.  At twenty-one, the junior partner retiring, he was received as partner in his place, his guardian, Ralph Pendleton, purchasing an interest for him at a cost of fifty thousand dollars.  He developed good business abilities, and bid fair to swell this sum, in time, to a large fortune.  There is a prospect that he will, in time, sustain a closer relation to his senior partner, as it is rumored that Julia Godfrey, now a brilliant young belle, prefers her father’s young partner to any of the crowd of young men who pay her court.

The other characters in our story demand a few closing words.  First, for Mr. Stanton.  It might have been the sudden withdrawal of the fifty thousand dollars from his business that embarrassed him.  At any rate, from that time nothing prospered with him.  He met with loss after loss, until, in a time of financial panic he failed.  He saved but a little from the wreck of his fortune, That little started him in a modest business, yielding him, perhaps, one-tenth his former income.  The brownstone house was sold.  He moved into a shabby house in an obscure street, where Mrs. Stanton spends her time mostly in bewailing the loss of her former splendor.

Tom developed habits of extravagance, and seemed indisposed to work steadily.  Finally, when his reverses came, his father was compelled to refuse further assistance, and now Tom, in an inferior clerkship, on a small salary, gazes with envy at his once-despised cousin, with whom he has completely changed places.  How he will come out eventually is doubtful.  Unless he changes considerably, it is not likely that his circumstances will ever be much better than at present.