Elias knew no way to wealth but the slow and sure one.

"A penny saved is a penny gained," was his humble creed.

All that was not required for the business and the necessaries of life went into the little coffer with steel bands and florid key.

They denied themselves in turn the humblest luxuries, and then, catching one another's looks, smiled; perhaps with a greater joy than self-indulgence has to bestow.

And so in three years more they had gleaned enough to set up their fourth son as a master-tailor, and their eldest daughter as a robemaker, in Tergou.