s were
substituted for the active excitement of boating. Lectures were given,
essays were read, debates held, every week; and the progress of the boys
out of school, as well as within, was highly satisfactory to all
concerned.

CHAPTER XXI.

CONCLUSION.

I suppose, as the present volume completes the history of the Boat Club,
that my young readers will wish to know something of the subsequent
fortunes of the prominent characters of the association. It gives me
pleasure to say that not one of them has been recreant to his
opportunities, or abandoned his high standard of character; that the
moral, mental, and physical discipline of the organization has proved
salutary in the highest degree. The members of the boat clubs are now
active members of society. Each is pulling an oar, or steering his bark,
on the great ocean of life. Some are in humble spheres, as in the little
Dip; others are in more extended fields, as in the majestic twelve-oar
boats.

Frank Sedley is a lawyer. His father has gone to enjoy his reward in the
world beyond the grave; and Frank, who was married a year ago to Mary
Weston, resides in the mansion by the lake. His brilliant talents and
unspotted integrity have elevated him to a respectable position, for one
so young, in the legal profession; and there is no doubt but that he
will arrive at eminence in due time.

Uncle Ben is still alive, and continues to dwell at the mansion of the
Sedleys. The boats are still in being, and are manned by the boys
belonging to the school--under the direction of the veteran.

Tony Weston is a merchant. At the age of seventeen he was taken into the
counting-room of Mr. Walker, and at twenty-one admitted as an equal
partner. The man is what the boy was--noble, generous, kind.

Strange as it may seem, only one boy of the whole number has become a
sailor. Fred Harper went to sea when he left school, and was recently
appointed master of a fine clipper ship, bound for India. Little Paul is
a journeyman carpenter. He is in a humble sphere, but none the less
respected on that account. His father, who recovered his health, paid
the notes he had made to the clubs. The money was applied to the
purchase of books and a philosophical apparatus, which rendered the
winter evenings of the clubs still more attractive.

'Squire Chase "worked out his destiny" in Rippleton, and finally was so
thoroughly despised that he found it convenient to leave the place.
Perhaps my