Edgar walked
on. He could not sweep aside the image of that child at the window,
nor keep back his thoughts from entering the dwelling where her
presence might be the only sunbeam that gave light in its gloomy
chambers.
When Mr. Edgar arrived at his store, his feelings toward Mr. James
were very different from what they were on the day previous. All
anger, all resentment, were gone, and kindness had taken their place.
What if Mr. James did owe him a thousand dollars? What if he should
lose the whole amount of this indebtedness? Was the condition of the
former so much better than his own, that he would care to change
places with him? The very idea caused a shudder to run along his
nerves.
"Poor man!" he said to himself, pityingly. "What a terrible thing to
be thus involved in debt, thus crippled, thus driven to the wall. It
would kill me! Men are very cruel to one another, and I am cruel with
the rest. What are a thousand dollars to me, or a thousand dollars to
my well-to-do neighbor, compared with the ruin of a helpless
fellow-man? James asked time. In two years he was sure he could
recover himself, and make all good. But, with a heartlessness that
causes my cheek to burn as I think of it, I answered, 'The first loss
is always the best loss.
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