When the Wares, grown desperate, ventured upon the experiment of trading outside the bounds of the congregation, the trustees complained again, this time peremptorily.
Thus the second year dragged itself miserably to an end.

Nor was relief possible, because the Presiding Elder knew something of the circumstances, and felt it his duty to send Theron back for a third year, to pay his debts, and drain the cup of disciplinary medicine to its dregs.
The worst has been told.

Beginning in utter blackness, this third year, in the second month, brought a change as welcome as it was unlooked for.
An elderly and important citizen of Tyre, by name Abram Beekman, whom Theron knew slightly, and had on occasions seen sitting in one of the back pews near the door, called one morning at the parsonage, and electrified its inhabitants by expressing a desire to wipe off all their old scores for them, and give them a fresh start in life.

As he put the suggestion, they could find no excuse for rejecting it.

He had watched them, and heard a good deal about them, and took a fatherly sort of interest in them.