boy, with a massive forehead and intelligent eyes.

"Mother, I've mastered it at last; I'm so glad," he said presently.

"That's right, my son; you are quick, like your father," his mother
replied with a sigh.

"My father quick!" said the boy with ill-repressed contempt; "I didn't
know that before."

"Hush, Allan, your father was very clever when I first knew him, and
could do anything he liked."

"Then why does he leave you to work so hard now, while he lounges about
all day? Mother, I must speak; tell me that!" cried the boy impetuously.

"I cannot have you speak of your father like that, Allan; but I will
tell you why he cannot now do what he ought. When he was a boy like you
he was allowed to choose his own way in everything, and have all that he
asked for, and he chose wrong companions and sinful pleasures until he
ruined and blighted his own life and others too."

Allan hung his head, and remembered how he had sometimes rebelled
against the wise decisions of his much loved mother, and determined that
in the future he would add as little as possible to the heavy burden
that rested upon her frail shoulders. There was a step outside, and Mrs.
West rose hurriedly saying: "Clear your books away, and go to bed,
Allan; I must lay supper;" but before Allan had time to obey, his father
entered.

Was it possible that in a few short years Roland West should have become
the besotted, degraded-looking man, who flung himself into the one
easy-chair the room possessed?

"That boy up yet," he said with a scowl, "at those everlasting books;
let him go to work like other boys of his age, and earn his salt."

"That's what I intend him to do as soon as he is fit, Roland," answered
his wife in the quiet, firm tone with which she always addressed her
husband; usually he outwardly submitted to the controlling power that
her voice and eye exerted upon him; but this night he was in no mood to
be controlled or reasoned with.

"Hold your tongue, you saucy jade! What right have you to be bringing up
my boy to know more than his father, and teaching him your own fine airs
and graces. I'll have no more of it. Here, boy, fetch me a pint of ale!"

"Roland," said his wife, "Allan shall not go into that place of cursing
and drunkenness; I'll go myself rather."

"Oh," said the man, inwardly quailing before her flashing eyes, "is that
it, my high and mighty dame? either you or Allan shall go, then."

Seizing a jug, in a moment his w