o be careful; don't stand on the step  the train is mov- 
ing, thou might be thrown down." 

As the train went off, Josiah, in the  of his 
, wished he had been thrown down, and that it had 
gone over him. In  of what he told Dorothy about 
being glad they had met even if she could never  
for him, he asked himself now why he had ever seen 
her, if seeing her was only to make him hopeless and 
wretched. Had his father only brought him up differently 
-  taught him to say what he thought like other men  
made him feel certain that the  he was doing was 
the right  to do, matters might have been different. 
But what chance had he with a man like Charles Vers- 
choyle'? None. Telling his clerks that he was particu- 



LOVING AND LOSING. 289 

larly engaged and could see no one, Josiah went into 
his office, flung himself down upon his chair, and de- 
clared to himself that he did not  what became 
of him. 

In the mean time his sisters were anxiously awaiting 
his return, full of the importance of the awful disclosure 
which Kezia had to make. She had no intention of 
prefacing her revelation with  "Happening to be passing 
the window," or, "Not