She slowly tore it twice across , laid the fragments on a tray , and touched them with a lighted match . As they blazed up one line came out in writhing redness across the page : `` I will go away with you as you ask . '' Then it crumbled into gray ashes . She drew a long breath and hid her face in her hands . The Promissory Note Ernest Duncan swung himself off the platform of David White 's store and walked whistling up the street . Life seemed good to Ernest just then . Mr. White had given him a rise in salary that day , and had told him that he was satisfied with him . Mr. White was not easy to please in the matter of clerks , and it had been with fear and trembling that Ernest had gone into his store six months before . He had thought himself fortunate to secure such a chance . His father had died the preceding year , leaving nothing in the way of worldly goods except the house he had lived in . For several years before his death he had been unable to do much work , and the finances of the little family had dwindled steadily . After his father 's death Ernest , who had been going to school and expecting to go to college , found that he must go to work at once instead to support himself and his mother . If George Duncan had not left much of worldly wealth behind him , he at least bequeathed to his son the interest of a fine , upright character and a reputation for honesty and integrity . None knew this better than David White , and it was on this account that he took Ernest as his clerk , over the heads of several other applicants who seemed to have a stronger `` pull . '' `` I do n't know anything about you , Ernest , '' he said bluntly . `` You 're only sixteen , and you may not have an ounce of real grit or worth in you . But it will be a queer thing if your father 's son has n't . I knew him all his life . A better man never lived nor , before his accident , a smarter one . I 'll give his son a chance , anyhow .
XXXXX you take after your dad you 'll get on all right . ''
If about across as before for on over than to