rd
time with knitted brows, he rose, went to the window, and gazed
pathetically on the cat's parade, as he styled his prospect of slates
and chimney cans.

"So," said he at last, "my dreams are over; prospects gone; hopes
collapsed--all vanished like the baseless fabric of a vision."

He turned from the cat's parade, on which the shades of evening were
descending, to the less romantic contemplation of his empty fire-grate.

"Now," said he, re-seating himself at his table and stretching his long
legs under it, "the question is, What am I to do? shall I kick at fate,
throw care, like physic, to the dogs, cut the whole concern, and go to
sea?"

"Don't," said his taciturn friend, speaking distinctly for the first
time.

"Or," continued Jack, "shall I meekly bow to circumstances, and struggle
with my difficulties as best I may?"

"Do," replied his friend, whose name, by the way, was Conscience.

For a long time the student sat gazing at the open letter in silence.
It was from his father, and ran thus:--

"Dear Teddie,--It's a long time now that I've been thinkin' to write
you, and couldn't a-bear to give you such a heavy disappointment but
can't putt it off no longer, and, as your mother, poor soul, says,
it's the Lord's will and can't be helped--which, of course, it
shouldn't be helped if that's true--but--well, howsomever, it's of no
use beatin' about the bush no longer. The seasons have been bad for
some years past, and it's all I've been able to do to make the two
ends meet, with your mother slavin' like a nigger patchin' up the
child'n's old rags till they're like Joseph's coat after the wild
beast had done its worst on it--though we _are_ given to understand
that the only wild beasts as had to do with that coat was Joseph's own
brothers. Almost since ever I left the North of England--a small
boy--and began to herd cattle on the Border hills, I've had a strange
wish to be a learned man, and ever since I took to small farmin', and
perceived that such was not to be my lot in life, I've had a powerful
desire to see my eldest son--that's you, dear boy--trained in
scientific pursoots, all the more that you seemed to have a natural
thirst that way yourself. Your mother, good soul, in her own broad
tongue--which I've picked up somethin' of myself through livin' twenty
year with her--was used to say she `wad raither see her laddie trained
in ways o' wisdom than o' book-lear