ural disappointment, and by degrees schooled himself to look
cheerfully on the path imposed on his duty, and sanctioned by the manly
sense that was at the core of his character.

I believe that this self-conquest showed that the boy had true genius.
The false genius would have written sonnets and despaired.

But still Richard Avenel left his nephew sadly perplexed as to the
knotty question from which their talk on the future had diverged--viz.,
should he write to the Parson; and assure the fears of his mother? How
do so without Richard's consent, when Richard had on a former occasion
so imperiously declared that, if he did, it would lose his mother all
that Richard intended to settle on her. While he was debating this
matter with his conscience, leaning against a stile that interrupted a
path to the town, Leonard Fairfield was startled by an exclamation. He
looked up, and beheld Mr. Sprott the tinker.

CHAPTER XV.

The tinker, blacker and grimmer than ever, stared hard at the altered
person of his old acquaintance, and extended his sable fingers, as if
inclined to convince himself by the sense of touch, that it was Leonard
in the flesh that he beheld, under vestments so marvelously elegant and
preternaturally spruce.

Leonard shrank mechanically from the contact, while in great surprise he
faltered--

"You here, Mr. Sprott! What could bring you so far from home?"

"'Ome!" echoed the tinker, "I 'as no 'ome! or rayther, d'ye see, Muster
Fairfilt, I makes myself at 'ome verever I goes! Lor' love ye, I ben't
settled on no parridge. I vanders here and I vanders there, and that's
my 'ome verever I can mend my kettles, and sell my tracks!"

So saying the tinker slid his paniers on the ground, gave a grunt of
release and satisfaction, and seated himself with great composure on the
stile, from which Leonard had retreated.

"But, dash my vig," resumed Mr. Sprott, as he once more surveyed
Leonard, "vy, you bees a rale gentleman now, sure_ly_! Vot's the
dodge--eh?"--

"Dodge!" repeated Leonard mechanically--"I don't understand you." Then,
thinking that it was neither necessary nor expedient to keep up his
acquaintance with Mr. Sprott, nor prudent to expose himself to the
battery of questions which he foresaw that further parley would bring
upon him, he extended a crown-piece to the tinker; and saying with a
half smile, "You must excuse me for leaving you--I have business in the
town; and do me the favor to accep