The receipts from the shop were sufficient for their wants; and indeed the widow was enabled, from time to time, to lay by a pound against bad times; but she did not see what she was to do with the boy.

Almost all the other lads of the village, of the same age, were already in the fields; and Mrs.Whitney felt that she could not much longer keep him idle.

The question was, what was she to do with him?
That he should not go into the fields she was fully determined, and her great wish was to apprentice him to some trade; but as her father had recently died, she did not see how she was to set about it.
That evening, at dinner, Mrs.Ellison told the squire of the scene in the school room.
"White must go," he said, "that is quite evident.

I have seen, for some time, that we wanted a younger man, more abreast of the times than White is; but I don't like turning him adrift altogether.

He has been here upwards of thirty years.