the rug for the last time, and Robert had brought his coal-scuttle into
Ericson's room to combine their scanty remains of well-saved fuel in a
common glow, over which they now sat.

'I wonder what my grannie 'ill say to me,' said Robert.

'She'll be very glad to see you, whatever she may say,' remarked
Ericson.

'She'll say "Noo, be dooce," the minute I hae shacken hands wi' her,'
said Robert.

'Robert,' returned Ericson solemnly, 'if I had a grandmother to go home
to, she might box my ears if she liked--I wouldn't care. You do not know
what it is not to have a soul belonging to you on the face of the earth.
It is so cold and so lonely!'

'But you have a cousin, haven't you?' suggested Robert.

Ericson laughed, but good-naturedly.

'Yes,' he answered, 'a little man with a fishy smell, in a blue
tail-coat with brass buttons, and a red and black nightcap.'

'But,' Robert ventured to hint, 'he might go in a kilt and top-boots,
like Satan in my grannie's copy o' the Paradise Lost, for onything I
would care.'

'Yes, but he's just like his looks. The first thing he'll do the next
morning after I go home, will be to take me into his office, or shop,
as he calls it, and get down his books, and show me how many barrels of
herring I owe him, with the price of each. To do him justice, he only
charges me wholesale.'

'What'll he do that for?'

'To urge on me the necessity of diligence, and the choice of a
profession,' answered Ericson, with a smile of mingled sadness and
irresolution. 'He will set forth what a loss the interest of the money
is, even if I should pay the principal; and remind me that although he
has stood my friend, his duty to his own family imposes limits. And he
has at least a couple of thousand pounds in the county bank. I don't
believe he would do anything for me but for the honour it will be to
the family to have a professional man in it. And yet my father was the
making of him.'

'Tell me about your father. What was he?'

'A gentle-minded man, who thought much and said little. He farmed the
property that had been his father's own, and is now leased by my fishy
cousin afore mentioned.'

'And your mother?'

'She died just after I was born, and my father never got over it.'

'And you have no brothers or sisters?'

'No, not one. Thank God for your grandmother, and do all you can to
please her.'

A silence followed, during which Robert's heart swelled and heaved
with devotion to Ericson;