and when John sang "Through the trees the night winds murmur, murmur low and sweet," his mother could shut her eyes and hear Uncle Leander, the black sheep of three generations of Thatchers. So that the fact that John had something over a thousand dollars to put in General Hendricks' bank, and owned half a dozen town lots in the various additions to the town, made the mother thankful for the Grandfather Barclay's blood in him. But she saw a soul growing into the boy's face that frightened her. What others admired as strength she feared, for she knew it was ruthlessness. What others called shrewdness she, remembering his Grandfather Barclay, knew might grow into blind, cruel greed, and when she thought of his voice and his curly hair, and recalled Uncle Leander, the curly-headed, singing ne'er-do-well of her family, and then in the boy's hardening mouth and his canine jaw saw Grandfather Barclay sneering at her, she was uncertain which blood she feared most. So she managed it that John should go into partnership with General Ward, and Bob Hendricks managed it that the firm should have offices over the bank, and also that the firm was made attorneys for the bank,--the highest mark of distinction that may come to a law firm in a country town. The general realized it and was proud. But he thought the young man took it too much as a matter of course. "John," said the general, one day, as they were dividing their first five-hundred-dollar fee, "you're a lucky dog. Everything comes so easily with you. Let me tell you something; I've figured this out: if you don't give it back some way--give it back to the world, or society, or your fellows,--or God, if you like to bunch your good luck under one head,--you're surely going to suffer for it. There is no come-easy-go-easy in this world. I've learned that much of the scheme of things." "You mean that I've got to pay as I go, or Providence will keep books on me and foreclose?" asked John, as he stood patting the roll of bills in his trousers pocket. "That's the idea, son," smiled the elder man. The younger man put his hand to his chin and grinned. "I suppose," he replied, "that's why so many men keep the title to their religious proclivities in their wife's name." He went out gayly, and the elder man heard the boyish limp almost tripping down the stairs. Ward walked to the window, straightening his white tie, and stood looking into the street at the young man shaking hands and bowing and raising his hat as he went. Ward's hair was graying at the temples, and his thin smooth face was that of a man who spends many hours considering many things, and he sighed as he saw John turn a corner and disappear. "No, Lucy, that's not it exactly," said the general that afternoon, as he brought the sprinkler full of water to the flower bed for the eighth time, and picketed little Harriet Beecher Ward out of the watermelon patch, and wheeled the baby's buggy to the four-o'clocks, where Mrs. Ward was working. "It isn't that he is conceited--the boy