The Otago Witness.

Otago Witness, Issue 1823, 29 October 1886, Page 29

The Otago Witness.

BY MRS OLIPHANT, Author of "The Chronicles of Oarliogford,'" " Oliver's Bride," " Madam," &c.

[Thb Right of Translation is Reserved.}

any more neither what form the doubts and suspicions took, nor what reason there was in them.

He came reluctantly, with nothing of the feeling with what a youth of his age, conscious of no wrong, should go to his mother ; no trust in her kindnesß, no confidence that she would see anything that concerned him in a good lie;ht. And the very place, the great institution, which chilled and disheartened him with its atmosphere of professional business added to this intuitive reluctance.

It was the home of Christian charity and kindness; it was the place in which devoted men and women give up their lives to the solace of the suffering, to save lives and alleviate pain. Many a poor creature has found care and succour and the tenderest help in it.

But yet to John it was cold, sending a chill to his very heart ; the great space, the stony stairs and passages, the universal pre* occupation, was all so destructive to the idea of anything that could be called a home. People might live there, no doubt did live there when they were compelled by illness or by duty for the help of those who were ill ; but to dwell under that vast roof which covered so much suffering, how was that possible 1

And she had no other home, and this was the only place in the world to which he had any natural right to come.

Home in a hospital ! to him who had known what a natural home was, a place yon live in with your own, to possess to yourself, a secure shelter and refuge.

He followed the porter of the hospital, who guided him up the bare stairs, and pointed out the way to the matron's rooms at the end of the long, lofty, bare corridor, with a heart full of reluctance and disagreeable anticipations. He felt sure of being disapproved of, though he did not know what he had done that was wrong, and quiet discouragement and despondency and a sense of injustice and an impulse of resistance filled his mind.

It was not like a son going to his mother's room, or a youth without a home to the centre of domestic warmth and protection, but like a clerk, or official messenger on business, that he knocked at the door pointed out to him.

He was told to " Come in just as the messenger on business might have been told, and went in, and lingered for a moment by the door, struck by the strange impression of the floor, the quiet stream of undivided daybreak, the height of the walls, too high for decoration, the furniture no more than necessity required, the large writing table in the middle of the room laden with books and papers.

Mrs Sandford after her conversation with Susie, which had agitated her in spite of herself, had returned again to her work with more than ordinary absorption in it, and put up her hand to warn the new comer against interrupting her in the midst of a calculation.

John's heart melted within him at this strange welcome. He stood for a moment undecided. It occurred to him for a moment with a flash of resolution that he would turn and go, cutting this bond, which was one of mere conventional connection, and rushing forth, make his way as he could alone in the world.

He was stopped in this sudden gleam of half formal intention by a soft touch upon his arm and a still solter touch upon his cheek, and found Susie standing by him, whom he had not seen on coming in, looking at him with a tender interest and pride.

" I did not see you right, last night," said Susie, " Johnny dear. There was no light. Let me look at you now."

"There is not very much to see, Susie."

" Oh, there is a great deal to see, my little brother, that I have never stopped thinking of all my life, and just like what I thought ; but you are not my little brother now. Mother, here is John." Mrs Sandford laid down her pen and held out her hand.

" If I had lost the thread of that account I should never have found it again," she said. "My work is in such arrear. How are you this morning, John ? Let us sec this place on your forehead." " It is nothing," he said, with a flash of colour. " I must see that for myself,' she said, rising up, and taking his head in her hands. Other feelings came into John's heart as he felt those hands, with their skilful touch, putting aside his hair, examining his wounds. She let him go in a few moments, with a slight pat which, was almost a caress. It was what she would have done to any young patient, bufc this he did not know.

"It is as Susie said, nothing to be uneasy about. If it does not heal in a day or two we must get Mr Denton or Mr Colville to look at it. But I think it will heal of itself. It would have been more prudent, John, to remain at home instead of seeking adventures in the streets the first night."

" It didn't look much like home," he said.

"No; but it wonld, if you had waited for Susie. She is very like home pven here. We cannot make home for you, unhappily.

Chapter XXII (continued). OHN came in shortly after, a little later than the appointed hour. 1 He came with a sense that he was on his defence, or at least on the defensive, an almost more oppressive sensation, for except that he was distracted, and all his doings regarded with an un-

favourable eye, he did not know

The only thing tor it, failing that, is to find something to do." " That is what I desire most," he said.

She had seated herself again, returning to her books, and was looking at him with the air of one who has but a short time to spare for any other interest. Her eyes glanced from him to the long lines of figures she had before her. " Couldn't I do some of that for you ? " said John, with a sudden impulse. Mrs Sandford started, and looked at him with astonished eyes. "My work?" she said— "do you think you could do my work ? " "If it is only adding up figures, surely," said John. This time she let her eyes dwell on him a little longer", with a momentary smile, but more of wonder at his audacity than of pleasure. " That was well meant," she said ; "it was well meant. Susie, I think you can be spared to-day. You might go out with him, and show him something. It is natural that he should want to see something, and I will have more time this evening to tell him what I have settled. I have heard of an engineer's in which you can begin work. But you must take a holiday to-day. Susie will get her hat, and be ready at once. You will like that, I suppose?" " Yes," he said. Susie withdrew quickly, her face brightening, and John stood, seeing his mother's eye wander on her figures, then recovered herself with a glance towards him, in which he could read impatience restrained and a desire that he should be gone. It was this, perhaps, that inspired him with the question, which a moment before he had never dreamed of putting to her. " Will you tell me," he said, " whether there was ever a Mr Montressor who was a friend of my father's ? " He asked this without knowing why.

She started, and the pen fell out of her hand. If it was possible to change from her natural paleness, he would have said she grew more pale. Against the merciless shining of the great Swindow he could see her tremble, or at least so he thought. She did not say anything for a moment, and when she spoke her voice was somewhat different.

" I did not," she said, " know all your father's friends ; but it is a long time since. All ended in that way. What do you know of any snch friends ? " " It is an uncommon name," said John.

"Yes, it is an uncommon name. It is the sort of name that actors assume, and people of that kind. Ah, here is Susie, ready. Take your brother wherever you think he will like best to go. Don't hurry. I shall not be anxious, as long as you are here in time for tea."

She had risen with a sort of uneasy smile, and went with them to the door, touching Susie's dress witb her hand, smoothing down the little jacket she wore. When Susie had preceded her brother out of the room, Mrs Sandford transferred her touch nervously, quickly, to John's arm. " Such people are no friends for you," she said, hastily. "Avoid them, wherever you meet them. Avoid them ! they are not friends for you." She hadYnade no acknowledgement, and yet she had made more than an acknoleegment. The self-betrayal was instantaneous, but it was completed. Then it was his father of whom Montressor would not speak. Poor May 1 What had happened that he should be called Poor May ?

Chapter XXIII. Brother and Sister. Susie knew her way about, and where to go and what to see. She was not disturbed by the noise and languor of what she called " The Underground," a mode of conveyance which at first bewildered the country boy, to whom the clash of train after train, the noise, the complication, the crowds pouring this way and that, took away all understanding, and who felt himself a child in the hands of his sister, who knew exactly when the right train which she wanted was coming, and all about it, and steered him in her deft London way through the tumult.

" How can you tell which is which ? " John cried, feeling the dust in his throat, the din in his ears, and his eyes growing red and hot with the flutter of the crowd, and of all the sights-that flashed past him, and the smoke and suffocating atmosphere.

" Oh, I can't tell. I only know," said Susie.

She was at her ease in the midst of the commotion, looking as calm and as modest and composed as if she were walking in country lanes, not afraid of the thronged station of the metropolis, the dingy platforms, the confusion of porters' shouting and doors clanging. John had meant to take care of his sister, but it was he who clung to her in the midst of the bewilderment and the noise. She knew which train to take, she knew when to change into another, when to stop ; though to him they bore no distinction, neither the stations, the names of which he could never discover, nor the directions, for as yet John was not even aware which was north or south, east or west.

Under Susie's guidance, however, he saw and learnt a great deal in that first wonderful day. . She took him from the Tower to Hyde Park, to the Abbey, to the Houses of Parliament — to St. Paul's — as she was used to do with strangers, with convalescent patients sometimes, but that more gently, and with their relations and friends who would come up from the country to see somebody in the hospital, and then contemplate languidly the unknown world around them, till Susie, always kind, took pity on their ignorance.

By this means she had been trained in the duties of cicerone, and was extremely efficient, knowing just enough and not too much— which is best ; for a guide too erudite is a confusion to the simple mind.

She took her brother in the middle o£ the day to a modest place on the fculskirts of city, which she know by this kind of excursion, to give him something to eat, and thon pointed out to him what he found as interesting as anything— the young men and middle-

aged men of all classes inpursuit of luncheon, crowding every kind of hotel and eating-house. It gave John altogether a new view of that busy life, where there is no time to go home for meals, but where everyone has comfortable means of being fed with no makeshifts or pic-nic arrangements, but a whole population toiling to supply the brief necessary afoot.

This, with all its immense supply and demands, and the sight of the men about the streets, plunging into, and being swallowed up in the high buildings which have replaced, in so many cases magnificently, the old, shabby offices and chambers in which London laboured and grew rich, was as exciting to John, or perhas3 more so if the truth was told, than the historical places to which Susie had guided him

He was overawed by St. haul's when he stood under the great dome and heard the waves, so to speak, of the great sea of London clashing outside with a rhythmic force, and the venerable Abbey with all its records went to his heart. But for a youth of his day, standing eagerly upon the verge of life and longing to take part himself in all that wa9 going on, the flood and pressure of men steadily pushing their way along the streets, all with some object or pursuit pressing in crowds to snatch their hasty meal, pouring back again into every kind of office, in every possible capacity, this was to him the most interesting of all. Should he himself be like that in a week or two? Full of business, full of work, his mind all engaged with something outside of himself, no Jtime to inquire into his own history, or discuss his relationship, or make himself wretched, perhaps, about things that might turn out of so little importance. This was the thought that took entire possession of his mind as he went on.

" Do you think you'll like it, John ? " "I don't know if I'll like it. That's not what one wants to know — one wants to know how one is to get on."

" I should think," said Susie, hesitating a little. " I should think — that you are sure to get on if you try." " It shan't be for the want of trying," said John.

" Oh," cried Susie, " that is the thing we'll think of most — that you should try, John. If you try your very best and don't succeed, it's not your fault. That is what mother will think of, and I, too."

" But I mean to succeed," said John

Many have said it before him, and yet failed miserably. Yet each new aspirant means to win, and is as certain of his power to do so as those that went before. John's purpose shone in his eyes, and his certainty communicated itself to his sister. She put her hand through his arm, giving him an affectionate pressure. " And oh, how I wish and pray you may, and hope, too— oh, John, with all my heart. That will do more for mother to heal her wounds than anything else in the world."

Do more tor mother I That was not what he was thinking of. He drew his arm away, perhaps somewhat wildly. The mother who was Emily had but few claims upon him. If Susie had said it for herself, if Elly had said it, that would have been a motive. He did not feel inspired by the one presented to him now. And there was a pause between them, and Susie saw that she had made a mistake and that this was not the spell.

They went on for some time after very soberly, without any question on John's part or offer of information on the part of Susie, in a sort of heavy dispirited way. At last she pressed his arm again, and said : " Oh, John ! I wish you would have more feeling about mother. If you only knew what a life she has had, what a hard life I I can't do much, one way or another. I can only stand by her, and do what I can to please her ; but you are different. You can do so much. Oh, John !"

"Itisof no use. She does not believe that I will ever be good for anything. Sometimes I think she— dislikes me, Susie."

" Oh, John ! how can you say so, her own son, her only son. She has always thought of you, always — that I know."

"How has she thought of me? That I am soon to go away 1 I know," said John, with a sudden inspiration, " that is what she expects, that I will go away. She is always waiting to see me do it. I don't know why, but I am sure it has always been in her mind."

"She didn't know you John," said Susie, eagerly, not seeing that she assented to his suggestion, " how could she know you. We hud never seen you since you were a child, and if she thought "

" Why has she never seen me since I was a child ?" the boy asked sternly. " Why is it I didn't know you, Susie, my only sister, till now? "

" Oh, as for that," said she, pressing his arm, " that didn't matter, did it ? You and I would always understand each other. It is only to say that you are John and I am Susie. We didn't want any more."

"If sister and brother do that shouldn't mother and son do it ?" said John ; " and we don't, you know. She expects everything that is bad of me, and I think everything that is "

" No," she cried, ".don't say that ; oh, don't say that. It is all that you don't know her. Wait a little— only wait a little. She has had a great deal to bear. She has had to put on what is almost a mask, to hide her heart, which has been so wounded; oh, so wounded. John, you don't know."

" Not by me," he said. " I have never done anything to her. But she has made up her mind that I will turn out badly. Don't contradict me, Susie, for I know."

Susie made no attempt to contradict him. he patted his arm softly, and said : " Poor mother, poor mother," under her breath.

John was not ill-pleased that she should take his mother's part — it seemed suitable that she should do so, the thing that was loving and natural. He did not want her to come over to his side.

And then she was so wrong— so ridiculously, fantastically wrong, that somcoue to support and stand up for her was doubly necessary. Poor mother ! who would not even have it in her power to be glad as the commonest mother would be, when her eon

turned out the reverse of all she had feared.

" If you would only forget," said Susie, " this notion you have taken into your mind, and go on (as I know you will go on) well, and make your way, mother will be beside herself with joy. Oh, it will make up for everything that has passed, all she has had to bear, and there is nobody can do that but you."

This appeal left John cold. He was thoroughly determinod to go on well — by nature in the first place, for he felt no inclination for anything else. And if Susie had implored him for her own sake, or for Elly's sake, he would have responded magnanimously and promised everything she pleased — but for his mother, for the woman whose real name (if she only knew it) was Emily, how could that affect him? He needed no reply, and presently their attention was diverted by some new thing which was strange to the country lad, and they discoursed on this subject no more.

They had reached the Strand, the scene of John's adventure of the previous night, when Susie suddenly dropped his arm very hastily, and with scarcely a word of explanation, bidding him wait for her, took refuge suddenly *"n a shop. He had not recovered from his surprise, when he was accosted by someone who came up with great cordiality, holding out his hand, and in whom John, with no small surprise, recognised his acquaintance the man who had been so grateful and enthusiastic in his thanks, Montressor, who hailed him with a heartiness that was almost noisy, shaking hands violently and protesting his delight.

" Is it really you in the flesh.my dear young friend ? And I've found you, then, in daylight, and quite natural. You're not the good fairy in the pantomime, nor yet the Red Cross Knight, as our Nelly says you are. And none the worse ? I'm proud to see you, young Mr. May."

'• Oh," said John, " it's nothing ; indeed it's nothing. I hope she's all right, and that she has taken ho harm."

" She's taken no harurn, sir ; but she's a young creature of a highly nervous organisation, and her mothpr and me, we are always anxious. You'll come in and see my chyld, Mr Ma}', and let her mother thank her deliverer. We talk of nothing else, if you'll believe me. Ye are a sort of a little god, me young hero, to the little one and her grateful parents, and yell not pass me humble door.

" I can't come in to-day," said John, blushing a little, yet not without a sense that all this applause was pleasant, " for I'm waiting for my sister, who has gone into one of these shops. lam glad I did not go after her, or I should not have seen you ; but I will come another time to see you and the little girl."

" Do," said Montressor. He was a person who could not be called unobstruaive, his hat had a cock upon his head, and his elbow against his side, which called the attention of the passers-by. His shaven face, with its deep lines and noble features, and even his way of standing about, occupying much more than his proper share of the pavement, aroused the attention of the passers-by.

John felt unpleasantly that the people who passed stared, and that one or two lingered a little, contemplating the old actor with that frank curiosity which the British public permits itself to display. John, being young and shy, did not like their demonstrations ; but they pleased the object of them, who stood outside a little and said to his younger companion : " They remember Montressor. Though the managers consider me posse, give me old admirers. Them that have once flocked to see him in his favourite parts have not forgotton me. The public makes up for the injustice of the officials — me kind friends — me good friends. This would be sweet to the heart of our faithful partner Mr May."

" Yes, perhaps she would like it," said John, hesitating. But for himself, he could not disguise that he shrank from the appreciation of the passengers in the Strand.

Montressor was too much occupied by the pleasure they gave himself, however, to observe this."

"The public, Mr May," he said, "is the best of masters to the artist. As soon as ye can get face to face with it, sir, the battle's done. It's the officials, the managers, the middlemen, those that live upon the artist's blood. But a generous public never forgets an old servant."

He looked round upon the people who stared and lingered as if with she intention of addressing his thanks to them, while poor John shrank into himself.

"I think I must bid you good-bye, sir,' said the boy. "My sister is waiting for me. I'll come and see you soon, and ask for — for the little girl."

"Must ye go — then I'll not detain ye. You're right net to keep a lady waiting. Yes, come, my young hero — with us you'll ever find a grateful welcome. And I'll tell Nelly you have promised. Good-bye, and a father's blessing, Mr May."

To John's surprise Susie came out to him from the shop, where she had seen everything and heard something, looking very agitated and pale.

" You don't mean to say, John," she said, suddenly carrying him away in the opposite direction, " that that man knows you by the name of May."

" I never said anything about it," said John in his surprise, "but it is true, whoever told you. That is the name he knows me by — and why not, since it is my name."

" Oh, John," cried Susie, with tears in her eyes ; " when I told you it was for family reasons, for property and that sort of thing. Why will you be so perverse ? Do you think it is a nice thing ? Do you think it looks honest and true to have two names ? "

"Perhaps not," said the lad; "but then, let me have my own that was mine when I was a little child. Your family reasons, Susie, they were never told to me."

" Then for mere pride you will make an end of all mother has done and tried to do all her life, because she didn't explain to you, a little boy that couldn't understand : you'll expose her to all ports oi't rash, and yourseli", yourself to H

The tears were in Susie's eyes. Her countenance so gentTe and mild, was suffused

with angry colour, with indignation and impatience. " Even that man," she said, " even that man, a stranger, could Oh, John, will you go against grandfather as well as the rest of us,? He left you the most of what he had, and his own good name, John Sandford, because he had no son. Will you go against grandfather and grandmother too ? " " No," said John, after a pause, " I never did, and I never will. I suppose they wished it. They never said anything against that. But, Susie, I'm no longer a child. All those circumstances you speak of, that you have known for years and years, surely may be told to me too?"

She shuddered a little and turned her face away.

" I'll speak to mother," she said in a subdued voice. Then more boldly, " But if you're to be John Sandford, as grandfather said, you can't be — the other. Is it right to have two names 1 It is just the one thing that cannot be done. It looks as if one was dishonest, untrue, to hide one's only "

" I have no reason to do that," said John, "if you are sure grandfather intended it to be so. He never .said anything to me. I always took it for granted without inquiring. I had forgotten the other. As for Mr Montressor," said John, " I did it without thought. I had been thinking it over a great deal and it just came into my head."

" And how do you know Montressor ?'■ Susie asked

" Why, Susie, that is the man of last night !"

" The man of last night ! the man whose child And you gave him that other name? Oh!"

She gave a little fluttering cry, then paused, with a look of consternation growing upon her face. She stopped short for a moment in the streets in the extremity of her perplexed and troubled sensations. Then she caught John's arm again with a close pressure. " Don'tJ see that man any more. Oh, promise me not to see that man any more."

" Why ?" said John. "He is not perhaps so well known as he thinks, but he is a good fellow enough, and knows a lot. He is very kind. You should see him with his little girl ; and then he was so kind to me.''

"Oh John, oh John !" Susie cried. It had all been to pleasant when they had set out, when nothing but the ordinary incidents of living had to be taken into account. But now they had strnck upon more difficult ground.

Chapter XXIV. Beginning Life. That day John's future career was determined summarily, vrithout any further consultations of his wishes. It was the career he had himself chosen, the very same career about which there had been so many consultations at home in the old times. This was how he described to himself a period so very little withdrawn from the present moment. At horne — he had no home now, nor even a shadow of one.

It was the profession he had chosen — Elly's trade — the one they had fixed upon in their youthful fervour as the best for the advantage " of the race, as well as for the worthy work and fit advancement of the young workman, who, in his way, was still to be a Christian knight.

To make lighthouses and harbours for the safety of travellers at sea, and roads and bridges for the advantage of those at home —that was how the boy and girl had regarded it, or rather the girl and boy; for John had taken the .matter from the beginning more soberly than Elly, taking satisfaction in the idea of learning surveying and all the other unsavoury preliminaries, even mathematics, at which he had always been so much the best.

But when he was called to another interview in his mother's room at the hospital, and with her pen in her hand, suspended in the midst of the reports she was writing, or the accounts she was making up, Mrs Sandford had given him the letter which he was to take to a certain address, and so begin work at once, John's heart rose within him in resistance and indignation.

" I have settled everything," his mother said. " You will have nothing to do but to send up your name and this note. Well, it is what I understood you had set your heart upon, isn't il so? You want to be an engineer. So my father said."

"Yes, I want to be an engineer," John replied.

" And they were .sending you to a foundry in Liverpool — which is quite a different thing — when I interfered. You were not grateful to me, though your grandmother also, I believe, had been very very much against it. You wanted to go there because I did not want you to go. Wasn't that the reason ? You must put away those childish ideaa, John. Understand, once for all, that it is your real good I am seeking, and that it can do no good in any way to retain this position of antagonism to me."

" I wish no antagonism," said the boy; " I think everything is settled very quickly, very — summarily. I think I might know a little. I am nearly 18. I might be allowed something to say."

"Be silent, Susie," said Mrs Sandford, "there is no reason why you should interfere. You have been allowed a great deal to say. I have followed your own lead altogether. I might have put you into a merchant's office, which would have been more in my way, but I have adopted yours without a word. You could scarely point but to me the right people to apply to, I suppose ? It is only so far as this goes that I have acted for myself. But I don't see that this conversation can do us any good, John. Mr Barrett is a great supporter of the hospital, he is a very good mac, and he is one of the first in his profession. He will take yon, rather for my sake, it is true, than your own, but that can't be helped at your age ; and as he takes you without any prerninm, that is so much to your advantage. He will settle how you are to begin and all about it when yon go to him, which I hopo will be at once — to-day."

John went away with his letter without saying any more, and he carried out his mother's orders, biit without any pleasure in

the beginning, though as a matter of fact it was his own choice. That she meant his good, that she was doing the best she could for him, he believed, though grudgingly; but why should she do it so hardly, without grace or kindness, without anything that could make it pleasant ?

How often many such a question is asked - how impossible to answer it. To mean everything that is best in the world, to take trouble to do it, to heap solid benefits on the head of a dependant, a child, or retainer; and yet to do it all so as to make the' kindness an offence, almost and insult. What a curious perversion is this of everything that is best and tenderest !

John's mother was substantially right as well as substantially kind. She had chosen the best guidance for her son. She hadln no way thwarted his inclinations. She had indeed followed their natural bent, taken trouble to find the means of satisfying them ■ and yet John went away without a word.

He obeyed her and his fate. But he thus attained his own wish as if it had been a hardship, and submitted as to a fiat pronounced in entire indifference to his wishes.

What he would have liked to do as he crossed the bridge, and felt the playful gust of the April wind in his face, would have been to drop the letter in the river, and go away in one of the outward bound ships, on one of those changing railways which made a black network all about, to the end of the world. That would have pleased him indeed !

To throw the letter into the dark quiet flowing tide, to disappear and be no more heard of, and finally, years after, to reappear prosperous and great, John May bringing wealth and reputation with him. His mind dallied with this dream as he went along, and especially as he crossed the bridge, which suggested freedom and movement.

There is no thought that is so apt to come to a very young mind. To go away mysteriously, suddenly, leaving no trace, and in the future — thab future that is scarcely further off to 17 than to-morrow to a child— to come back triumphant to the confusion of all prophets of evil. Sometimes the young dreamer will carry out his vision, bringing misery and self-reproach to those he leaves behind, but coming back in most cases far from triumphant, forced by destitution or misery, perhaps, or at best disenchanted and dreary, dazzling no one with the success which has ceased to be sweet.

Perhaps John, who had a great deal of sense, perceived this ; at all events he was held by those bonds of duty which had lain on him lightly in the past, yet had created a tradition and necessity of obedience which nothing he had yet encountered he was , strong enough to abrogate.

He felt the temptation, but it never oocurred to him as one to which he could yield ; and though his heart was in revolt and his pride all in arms, yet he trudged along soberly across the river to Great George street, where he was bound, without any active resistance, feeling himself under the guidance and control of an unkindly fate.

" He was received not unkindly, however, though with great gravity, by Mr Barrett, the gentleman to whom his mother's letter was addressed, and who questioned him as to his studies, how far he had gone in his mathematics, and whether he had made any acquaintance with the special work of the profession he desired to take up.

Mr Barrett was a very serious person, indeed, in a dress which was almost clerical, and with manner more solemn than ever clergyman was, which is a curious effect not unusual among lay persons who assume the attitude of advice and exhortation, which is supposed to be the special privilege of the clergy. Mr Barrett's necktie was not white, but the gray and black with which it was striped was faint, producing a sort of illusion in point of colour, and his manners were more distinctive than his tie.

" I know your mother," he said. " She is an excellent woman, a most worthy person. Her son ought to be satisfactory, and I hope you will prove so; but she has had many trials, much more than fall to the ordinary lot."

John did not make any reply, at all events nothing was audible of what he said, though in reality he kept up a firm fire of response.

" If she has had many trials she ought to have kept them to herself,' 1 was what he said hotly within himself.

" I hope that you begin work with the hope and intention of making up to her a little for all she has had to bear," Mr Barrett resumed. "She has been for many years under my personal observation," and anyone more devoted to duty I never saw."

" Oh, yes," said John to himself, " that is like Emily, not because she likes to do it, but because its duty," which was at once a hostile and a foolish remark.

"But you must remember," said his adviser, " that London is a place full of temptation and danger. Everywhere it is easy to go wrong ; so much easier, unfortunately, than to do right. But in London the devil is roaring at every street corner, seeking whom he may devour. You must make up your mind to struggle stoutly against his wiles. I can't even shut out of my office, though I try to be as careful as possible, those who prefer the path to the narrow, but I hope you will not let yourself be led away."

" I hope I shall do my duty, sir," said John, this time andibly enough, in a not very sweet or genial voice.

" I hope you will — that is the right way to look at it — especially to a young man in your position a great deal of care is necessary. Among my other pupils you will find some who have less occasion, as people say, to work. I don't myself allow that. I think every man ought to work, and work with all his strength, if not for necessity, yet for — duty, as you say. But the sons of parents who are well off in this world's goods often take a great deal of license, which you, Sandford, in your position, must not take as an example. You must keep your nose at the grindstone. It is doubly important for you in your circumstances." It was all that John could do not to do

mand audibly as he did in his consciousness:

" What are my circumstances, then — what is my special position 1" His position had been a very good one all his life till now, the best in the village, after the rector's family, their comrade and associate. He never had any occasion to think of himself as received on sufferance as inferior to anyone. It wounded his pride bitterly to be compelled to look upon himBelf in this way.

" Your advancement will depend on yourself," Mr Barrett continued. "It is for you to prove what you can do. After you have gone through your course of instruction, if you show yourself diligent, careful, and, above all, trustworthy, you will retain our best recommendations. But all this must depend entirely on yourself. We can't of course take you upon our shoulders and guarantee your future. This I hope your mother fully understands. I am willing to stretch a point for a woman who has acquitted herself so well under trying circumstances. But she must understand, and you must understand, that we don't make ourselves responsible for you ; you must in the end stand or fall on your own merits. The firm cannot carry you on their shoulders about the world "

"I hope no one expected anything of the kind," cried John, aching and trembling with wounded pride. " No, no, I hope not. I think it is always better to make these things quite plain. The premium I remit with pleasure to such a worthy woman as Mrs Sandford, to show my sense of her admirable conduct under very trying " "I beg your pardon," cried John. "I don't wish for my part to come in on better terms than the others. I don't want any charity. I have not my own money at this moment, but I shall have it when I come of age, and I assure you there will be no difficulty about paying the premium then." Mr Barrett looked at him with astonished eyes. To have charity cast back in his teeth is agreeable to no man. He stammered as he replied with mingled indignation and astonishment :

« i — i don't understand you. What — what do you mean ? Are you coming to me to propose an arrangement on your own account or to complete one made by your mother ?"

He regained his composure as he went on. "If this is temper, my young friend, we had better break off at once ! I don't want any touchy people taking offence about my plan." His tone had changed. He had given up exhortation and good advice, and spoke sharply, with a ring of reality in his voice which brough John to himself. " I beg your pardon, sir. I am perhaps wrong. I am not ill-tempered nor touchy. I do want to do my duty, and have my work, and make my way. It was only the idea of charity, and I had never been used to it 1" John said.

" I am afraid you'll have a great deal to struggle with. in your disposition, if that's how you'take things," said Mr Barrett, shaking his head. He added quickly, "I don't know that I've time to go into the question of your feelings. The manager will tell you about hours and all arrangements. I hope he will have a good account to give me of your work and progress. Good day."

This was all he made by his outburst of impatience and indignation. He left a disagreeable impression on the mind of his new employer, and went out himself sore, humiliated, and injured, feeling himself in the wrong. It was not his fault, he said to himself. It was the different position in which he found himself, so different from the past. That he sjhould be of no account, received, if not out of charity, at least out of a humiliating kindness, because of his mother's admirable conduct in her trying circumstances— in what trying circumstances ? John could not believe that his father's death had been so tremendous a grief as all these sayings seemed to imply. And then to be no longer consulted, no longer even told what was going to happen to him, sent off with a note like an errandboy getting a place ! The pride or the humbling of the boy who has always felt himself to be somebody, and suddenly discovers himself to be nobody, is not of much consequence to the world. It is not of much importance even to himself. In most cases it does him a great deal of good, and he lives to feel that and smile at the mere pangs of his boyhood. And yet there are few pangs more keen. They cut like knives through the sensitive fibres of poor John's heart, and the only refuge which his pride could take was in imagining circumstances in which he would vindicate himself, tremendous accidents in which his courage and presence of -mind should avert catastrophe, misfortunes in which he would be the deliverer. The most common of sufferings, the most usual of all the dreams of self-importance."

It was with his head full of all these new complications that he returned— not home, which was the word that came to his lips in spite of himself. Not home, he ha 4 now no home. Nobody could call Mrs Sandf ord's rooms at the hospital home, not even Susie. John's heart swelled as he caught himself on the eve of using that antiquated word, that word which, bad no signification any more, and then he thought of Elly under the old pear tree with her algebra, thinking of him. She had told him to think of her so. A little picture rose before him quite suddenly. Elly under the pear tree with her algebra

A smile flickered to his lips at the thought. She would be sure to think of him, for she was not very fond of algebra, and to escape a little from those mystic signs and symbols Elly would be glad to take refuge in recollections of her friend who was almost like a brother. He thought he could see her under the old pear tree, with the wind in her hair, lifting the long, heavy, beautiful locks. The pear blossoms would not be over yet, the sun would make it shine like an old castle with tenants of white. Mr Oattley would still look over Elly's algebra and shake bis head. Oh, jres, he would shake his TOOT mbie than ever, but John -would not

be there to suggest a way out of those thorny paths, and Elly would make much of them without that help.

It gave him a sensation of pleasure, as if he had escaped for a moment from all the gravities of fate into that chapel garden, and found a glimpse of something like home in Elly's bright face.

" You must find fresh lodgings nearer to your work," said Mrs Sandford, when she received his report, which was given, it is unnecessary to say, with considerable reticence, and disclosed nothing about the little encounter with Mr Barrett on the subject of the premium, any more than it did of that imaginary glimpse of Elly in the rectory garden. "I am very glad it is all settled so comfortably, but you must find lodgings nearer your work."

"I shall not mind the walk. After the day's work I should like it."

"No. I should not like it for you. I don't want you to get the habit of roaming about London. It is not good either for soul or body. A lodging near the office is best."

'• You surely don't mean to shut me up in the evenings?" said the boy. "You don't mean me to stay indoors all the night ?"

" It would be much better for you if you did — for yourself. You could find plenty to occupy you. You might carry on your studies, or if you wanted amusement you might read. Twenty years hence you will be pleased to think that was how you spent your nights."

"lean see no reason," he said, "why I could not do all that, and yet live where I am."

" That is because you love the streets," said his mcther. " I know — oh, I did not require that you should tell me. You like the movements and the noise and the amusement."

"It is quite true," said John. " But is there any harm "

" Oh," she said, " did not I tell you, Susie — he is his father's son !"

(To be continued.)