A Perilous Secret. Este artículo no está disponible.A Perilous Secret

Book by Reade Charles

Trent The young man had his coat off, by which you might infer it was very hot; but no, it was a keen October day, and an east wind sweeping down the river. The coat was wrapped tightly round the little girl, so that only her fair face with blue eyes and golden hair peeped out; and the young father sat in his shirt sleeves, looking down on her with a loving but anxious look. Her mother, his wife, had died of consumption, and he was in mortal terror lest biting winds and scanty food should wither this sweet flower too, his one remaining joy. William Hope was a man full of talent; self-educated, and wonderfully quick at learning anything; he was a Unguist, a mechanic, a mineralogist, a draughtsman, an inventor. I tem, a bit of a farrier, and half a surgeon; could play the fiddle and the guitar; could draw and paint and drive a fourin-hand. Almost the only thing he could not do was to make money and keep it. Versatility seldom pays. But, to tell the truth, luck was against him; and although in a long life every deserving man seems to get a chance, yet Fortune does baffle some meritorious men for a limited time. Generally, we think, good fortune and ill fortune succeed each other rapidly, like red cards and black; but to soi Aeill luck comes in great long slices; and if they dont drink or despair, by-and-by good luck comes continuously, and everything turns to gold with him who has waited and deserved. Well, for years Fortune was hard on William Hope. It never let him get his head above-water. If he got a good place, the employer died or sold his business. If he patented an invention, and exhausted his savings to pay the fees, no capitalist would work it, or some other inventor proved he had invented something so like it that there was no basis for a monopoly. At last there fell on him the heaviest blow of all. He had accumulated 50 as a merchants clerk, and was
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)