ived, and Aunt Hannah had
said to Vane:--

"I am so glad, my dear. To-morrow, he goes back to town."

"And a jolly good job too, aunt!" cried Vane.

"Yes, my dear, but do be a little more particular what you say."

They were seated all together in the drawing-room, with Deering in the
best of spirits, when all of a sudden, he exclaimed:--

"This is the sixth day! How time goes in your pleasant home, and I've
not said a word yet about the business upon which I came. Well, I must
make up for it now. Ready, Vane?"

"Ready for what, sir,--game at chess?"

"No, boy, work, business; you are rapidly growing into a man. I want
help badly and the time has arrived. I've come down to settle what we
arranged for about my young partner."

Had a shell fallen in the little drawing-room, no one could have looked
more surprised.

Deering had kept his word.

In the course of the next morning a long and serious conversation
ensued, which resulted evidently in Deering's disappointment on the
doctor's declining to agree to the proposal.

"But, it is so quixotic of you, Lee," cried Deering, angrily.

"Wrong," replied the doctor, smiling in his old school-fellow's face;
"the quixotism is on your side in making so big a proposal on Vane's
behalf."

"But you are standing in the boy's light."

"Not at all. I believe I am doing what is best for him. He is far too
young to undertake so responsible a position."

"Nonsense!"

"I think it sense," said the doctor, firmly. "Vane shall go to a large
civil engineer's firm as pupil, and if, some years hence, matters seem
to fit, make your proposition again about a partnership, and then we
shall see."

Deering had to be content with this arrangement, and within the year
Vane left Greythorpe, reluctantly enough, to enter upon his new career
with an eminent firm in Great George Street, Westminster.

But he soon found plenty of change, and three years later, long after
the rector's other pupils had taken flight, Vane found himself busy
surveying in Brazil, and assisting in the opening out of that vast
country.

It was hard but delightful work, full at times of excitement and
adventure, till upon one unlucky day he was stricken down by malarious
fever on the shores of one of the rivers.

Fortunately for him it happened there, and not hundreds of miles away in
the interior, where in all probability for want of help his life would
have been sacrificed.

His companions, howev