hed East. "Sooner have no bread, any
day, than half the loaf."

"I don't know," said Arthur; "it's rather puzzling; but aren't most
right things got by proper compromises? I mean where the principle
isn't given up."

THE BROWN COMPROMISE.

"That's just the point," said Tom; "I don't object to a compromise
where you don't give up your principle."

"Not you," said East, laughingly. "I know him of old, Arthur, and
you'll find him out some day. There isn't such a reasonable fellow in
the world, to hear him talk. He never wants anything but what's right
and fair; only when you come to settle what's right and fair, it's
everything that he wants, and nothing that you want. And that's his
idea of a compromise. Give me the Brown compromise when I'm on his
side."

"Now, Harry," said Tom, "no more chaff--I'm serious. Look here--this
is what makes my blood tingle;" and he turned over the pages of his
Bible and read: "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to
the king, O Nebuchadnezzar,[23] we are not careful to answer thee in
this matter. If it _be_ so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver
us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine
hand, O king. But _if not_, be it known unto thee, O king, that we
will _not_ serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou
hast set up." He read the last verse twice, emphasizing the _nots_,
and dwelling on them as if they gave him actual pleasure, and were
hard to part with.

[23] See Daniel iii.

They were silent a minute, and then Arthur said: "Yes, that's a
glorious story, but it doesn't prove your point, Tom, I think. There
are times when there is only one way, and that the highest; and then
the men are found to stand in the breach."

"There's always a highest way, and it's always the right one," said
Tom. "How many times has the Doctor told us that in his sermons in the
last year, I should like to know?"

"Well, you aren't going to convince us, is he, Arthur? No Brown
compromise to-night," said East, looking at his watch. "But it's past
eight, and we must go to first lesson. What a bore!"

So they took down their books and fell to work; but Arthur didn't
forget, and thought long and often over the conversation.

CHAPTER III.

ARTHUR MAKES A FRIEND.

"Let Nature be your teacher:
Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things
We m