retty well taken all the conceit out of him for the time. The
impotency of his own will, even when he was bent on doing the
right thing, his want of insight and foresight in whatever matter
he took in hand, the unruliness of his temper and passions just
at the moments when it behooved him to have them most thoroughly
in hand and under control, were a set of disagreeable facts which
had been driven well home to him. The results, being even such as
we have seen, he did not much repine at, for he felt he had
deserved them; and there was a sort of grim satisfaction, dreary
as the prospect was, in facing them, and taking his punishment
like a man. This was what he had felt at the first blush on the
Hawk's Lynch; and, as he thought over matters again by his fire,
with his oak sported, on the first evening of term, he was still
in the same mind. This was clearly what he had to do now. How to
do it, was the only question.

At first he was inclined to try to set himself right with the
Porters and the Englebourn circle, by writing further
explanations and confessions to Katie. But, on trying his hand at
a letter, he found that he could not trust himself. The
temptation of putting everything in the best point of view for
himself was too great; so he gave up the attempt, and merely
wrote a few lines to David, to remind him that he was always
ready and anxious to do all he could for his friend, Harry
Winburn, and to beg that he might have news of anything which
happened to him, and how he was getting on. He did not allude to
what had lately happened, for he did not know whether the facts
had become known, and was in no hurry to open the subject
himself.

Having finished his letter, he turned again to his meditations
over the fire, and, considering that he had some little right to
reward resolution, took off the safety valve, and allowed the
thoughts to bubble up freely which were always underlying all
others that passed through his brain, and making constant low,
delicious, but just now somewhat melancholy music, in his head
and heart. He gave himself up to thinking of Mary, and their walk
in the wood, and the sprained ankle, and all the sayings and
doings of that eventful autumn day. And then he opened his desk,
and examined certain treasures therein concealed, including a
withered rose-bud, a sprig of heather, a cut boot-lace, and a
scrap or two of writing. Having gone through some extravagant
forms of worship, not necessary