And so days became weeks, and weeks became months. George had begun his work with a fierce disappointment gnawing at his heart, and thought he should never live to see the day when he would not regret that he was not in the navy. But at sixteen, with health and work, despair cannot long abide. Before he knew it the pain grew less, and insensibly he found himself becoming happier. But this was not accomplished by sitting down and brooding over his troubles; it was done by hard work, by a powerful will, and the fixed determination to make the best of things. Before the summer was over he could think, without a pang, of that cruel blow he had received the day after he reached Ferry Farm.