But she had made
Fred feel for the first time something like the tooth of remorse.
Curiously enough, his pain in the affair beforehand had consisted
almost entirely in the sense that he must seem dishonorable,
and sink in the opinion of the Garths: he had not occupied
himself with the inconvenience and possible injury that his breach
might occasion them, for this exercise of the imagination on
other people's needs is not common with hopeful young gentlemen.
Indeed we are most of us brought up in the notion that the highest
motive for not doing a wrong is something irrespective of the beings
who would suffer the wrong. But at this moment he suddenly saw
himself as a pitiful rascal who was robbing two women of their savings.
"I shall certainly pay it all, Mrs. Garth--ultimately," he stammered out.
"Yes, ultimately," said Mrs. Garth, who having a special dislike
to fine words on ugly occasions, could not now repress an epigram.
"But boys cannot well be apprenticed ultimately: they should be
apprenticed at fifteen." She had never been so little inclined
to make excuses for Fred.
"I was the most in the wrong, Susan," said Caleb. "Fred made sure
of finding the money. But I'd no business to be fingering bills.
I suppose you have looked all round and tried all honest means?"
he added, fixing his merciful gray eyes on Fred.
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