e so early?" said I.

"I'm going to have two or three friends to dine. I suppose it'll be
all right about the dinner? That was not why I came home, though: I
had some letters to write which must go by the steamer, and I didn't
go to Cambridge after all. The snow-storm was too much for me, I
wanted a good light there."

"Sit down a while," said I. "You have time enough for your letters;
it's only a little after four." Jack hated to write at the
library-table, and always went to the desk in his own book-room if he
had any thing to do. He seemed a little tired, and threw me some
letters the postman had given him as he came in at the door; then he
sat down in his great chair near me, and seemed to be lost in thought.
He was immensely interesting to me then; for we had only been together
a few weeks, and I was often curious about his moods, and was apt to
be much pained myself if any thing seemed to trouble him. I was always
wishing we had not been separated so much, and I was afraid I might be
wanting in insight and sympathy; but I think the truth has been that
we are much more intimate, and are far better friends, and have less
restraint, because we had seen so little of one another in the years
that had passed. But we were terribly afraid of interfering with each
other at first, and were so distractingly polite that we bored each
other not a little; though that did not last long, happily, after we
had convinced each other that we could behave well.

"You say it'll be all right about dinner?" repeated my brother.

"Oh, yes!" said I, "unless you wish for something very grand. Would
you like to have me put on my crown and sceptre?"

"There has never been a day yet when I should have been sorry to have
brought a friend home," said Jack, with a good deal of enthusiasm, and
I was at once puffed up with pride; for Jack, though an uncomplaining
soul, was also fastidious, and his praise was not given often enough
to be unnoticed.

"I met an old classmate just now," said he presently, rousing himself
from his reverie. "I haven't seen him for years before. He went out to
South America just after the war, and I supposed he was there still.
He used to be one of the best fellows in the class; and he enlisted
when I did, though we did not belong to the same company. I heard once
he was rather a failure; but something has broken him down horribly.
He doesn't look as if he drank," said my brother, half to himself. "I
met him over o