The Banker and the Bear

At last one Sunday afternoon in early spring, after months of suspense that seemed years to John, Alice consented to marry him, and John was so happy that he did not blush or stammer, as they had been sure he would, when he told the Sponleys about it. There never was such an illumination as the street lamps made that evening when John walked back to his father's house; and something in his big dismal room, the single faint-heartedgas-jet, perhaps, threw a rosy glow even over that.

When he had left Bagsbury and Company to go to work for Dawson, there had occurred no change in John's personal relation with his father. That relation had never amounted to much, but they continued to live on not unfriendly terms. Quite unconscious that he was misusing