eak the thought that distressed him.

"You speak of what can be saved for _me_, Herbert--of what _you_ may be
compelled to do. Do you suppose that we can have separate interests in
this question?--are not your hopes my hopes--will not your success, your
triumph, be mine too? The only consideration for us, it seems to me, is
whether the profession you have chosen and the prospects open to you in
it, are worth some present sacrifice."

"They are worth every sacrifice on my part--but you, mother----"

"Have no separate interest from my child--I have shared all your hopes,
all your aspirations, Herbert, and it would cost me less to live on
bread and water, to dress coarsely, and lodge hardly for the next five
years, than to yield my anticipations of your future success."

Others had felt _for_ Herbert, and had offered to aid him, and he had
turned from them with a deeper sense of his need and diminished
confidence in his own powers--his mother felt _with_ him, and he was
cheered and strengthened. The offers of the friendly merchant were
gratefully declined. By the sale of her jewels, Mrs. Latimer obtained
the sum necessary to meet the expenses incident to her son's first
entrance on his professional studies. She then appropriated three
hundred dollars of their little income to his support in the city, and
withdrew herself to the country, where, she said, the remaining two
hundred would supply all her wants. When Herbert would have remonstrated
against these arrangements, she reminded him that they were intended to
accomplish her own wishes no less than his. He ceased to remonstrate,
but he did what was better--he acted--and the very first year, by
self-denying economy and industry, he was enabled to return to her fifty
dollars of the amount she had allotted to him. The second year he did
better, and the third year Mrs. Latimer was able to return to the city
and board at the same house with her son. It was only by the joy she
expressed at their re-union that Herbert learned how painful the
separation had been to her. She would not waste his strength and her own
in vain lamentation over a necessary evil. Four years sufficed to
prepare Herbert Latimer for his profession, and through the influence of
some of his mother's early friends, exerted at her earnest request, the
legislative act which permitted his entrance on its duties, was passed.
The knowledge of his circumstances had excited a warm interest for him
in many minds