us to
elevate; gratitude to his patron, whose great kindness he wished to
justify, and admiration for Clara, whose esteem he was ambitious to
secure.

He attended his patron in all his professional visits; for the doctor
said that actual, experimental knowledge formed the most important part
of a young medical student's education.

The mornings were usually passed in reading, in the library; the middle
of the day in attending the doctor on his professional visits, and the
evenings were passed in the drawing-room with the doctor, Clara and Mrs.
Rocke. And if the morning's occupation was the most earnest and the
day's the most active, the evening's relaxation with Clara and music and
poetry was certainly the most delightful! In the midst of all this peace
and prosperity a malady was creeping upon the boy's heart and brain
that, in his simplicity and inexperience, he could neither understand
nor conquer.

Why was it that these evening fireside meetings with the doctor's lovely
daughter, once such unalloyed delight, were now only a keenly pleasing
pain? Why did his face burn and his heart beat and his voice falter when
obliged to speak to her? Why could he no longer talk of her to his
mother, or write of her to his friend, Herbert Greyson? Above all, why
had his favorite day dream of having his dear friends, Herbert and Clara
married together, grown so abhorrent as to sicken his very soul?

Traverse himself could not have answered these questions. In his
ignorance of life he did not know that all his strong, ardent, earnest
nature was tending toward the maiden by a power of attraction seated in
the deepest principles of being and of destiny.

Clara in her simplicity did not suspect the truth; but tried in every
innocent way to enliven the silent boy, and said that he worked too
hard, and begged her father not to let him study too much.

Whereupon the doctor would laugh and bid her not be uneasy about
Traverse--that the boy was all right and would do very well! Evidently
the doctor, with all his knowledge of human nature, did not perceive
that his protege was in process of forming an unadvisable attachment to
his daughter and heiress.

Mrs. Rocke, with her woman's tact and mother's forethought, saw all! She
saw that in the honest heart of her poor boy, unconsciously there was
growing up a strong, ardent, earnest passion for the lovely girl with
whom he was thrown in such close, intimate, daily association, and who
w