hand on my shoulder;
and my father, seating himself beside me on a fragment of stone, said
earnestly; "Pisistratus, let us talk. I had hoped better things from
your study of Robert Hall."

"Nay, dear father, the medicine did me great good: I have not repined
since, and I look steadfastly and cheerfully on life. But Robert Hall
fulfilled his mission, and I would fulfil mine."

"Is there no mission in thy native land, O planeticose and exallotriote
spirit?" (2) asked my father, with compassionate rebuke.

"Alas, yes! But what the impulse of genius is to the great, the instinct
of vocation is to the mediocre. In every man there is a magnet; in that
thing which the man can do best there is a loadstone."

"Papoe!" said my father, opening his eyes; "and are no loadstones to be
found for you nearer than the Great Australasian Bight?"

"Ah,--sir, if you resort to irony I can say no more!" My father looked
down on me tenderly as I hung my head, moody and abashed.

"Son," said he, "do you think that there is any real jest at my heart
when the matter discussed is whether you are to put wide seas and long
years between us?" I pressed nearer to his side, and made no answer.

"But I have noted you of late," continued my father, "and I have
observed that your old studies are grown distasteful to you; and I have
talked with Roland, and I see that your desire is deeper than a boy's
mere whim. And then I have asked myself what prospect I can hold out at
home to induce you to be contented here, and I see none; and therefore
I should say to you, 'Go thy ways, and God shield thee,'--but,
Pisistratus, your mother!"

"Ah, sir, that is indeed the question; and there indeed I shrink! But,
after all, whatever I were,--whether toiling at the Bar or in some
public office,--I should be still so much from home and her. And then
you, sir, she loves you so entirely that--"

"No," interrupted my father; "you can advance no arguments like these to
touch a mother's heart. There is but one argument that comes home
there: is it for your good to leave her? If so, there will be no need of
further words. But let us not decide that question hastily; let you and
I be together the next two months. Bring your books and sit with me;
when you want to go out, tap me on the shoulder, and say 'Come.' At the
end of those two months I will say to you 'Go' or 'Stay.' And you will
trust me; and if I say the last, you will submit?"

"Oh yes, sir, yes!"

(1) H