think of it?" said his
grandmother.

"Why, of course, it's the best of all. When I was a little fellow, I
used to think I should be a doctor some day, but I don't feel quite so
sure of it now. Do you really think, grannie, I _could_ be a doctor like
papa? You see that wants such a good head--and--and--everything."

"Yes; it does want a good head and everything. But you've got a good
enough head to begin with, and it depends on yourself to make it a
better one. So long as people's hearts keep growing better, their heads
do the same. I think you have every faculty for the making of a good
doctor in you."

"Do you really think so, grannie?" cried Willie, delighted.

"I do indeed."

"Then I shall ask papa to teach me."

But Willie did not find his papa quite ready to take him in hand.

"No, Willie," he said. "You must learn a great many other things before
it would be of much use for me to commence my part. I will teach you if
you like, after school-hours, to compound certain medicines; but the
important thing is to get on at school. You are quite old enough now
to work at home too; and though I don't want to confine you to your
lessons, I should like you to spend a couple of hours at them every
evening. You can have the remainders of the evenings, all the mornings
before breakfast, and the greater parts of your half-holidays, for
whatever you like to do of another sort."

Willie never required any urging to what his father wished. He became at
once more of a student, without becoming much less of a workman--for he
found plenty of time to do all he wanted, by being more careful of his
odd moments.

One lovely evening in spring, when the sun had gone down and left the
air soft, and balmy, and full of the scents which rise from the earth
after a shower, and the odours of the buds which were swelling and
bursting in all directions, Willie was standing looking out of his open
window into the parson's garden, when Mr Shepherd saw him and called to
him--

"Come down here, Willie," he said. "I want to have a little talk with
you."

Willie got on the wall from the top of his stair, dropped into the
stable-yard, which served for the parson's pony as well as the Doctor's
two horses, and thence passed into Mr Shepherd's garden, where the two
began to walk up and down together.

The year was like a child waking up from a sleep into which he had
fallen crying. Its life was returning to it, fresh and new. It was as if
G