hat would be unfair to them all, even the
old rogue himself; for I promised to say nothing about former practices,
as long as he did not renew them."

"Well! I don't want to compromise you, Norman. You know your own ground
best, but I don't like it at all. You don't know the humiliation
of disgrace. Those who have thought highly of you, now thinking you
changed--I don't know how to bear it for you."

"I don't mind anything while you trust me," said Norman, eagerly; "not
much I mean, except Mr. Wilmot. You must judge, papa, and do as you
please."

"No, you must judge, Norman. Your confidence in me ought not to be a
restraint. It has always been an understood thing that what you say
at home is as if it had not been said, as regards my dealings with the
masters."

"I know, papa. Well, I'll tell you what brought me to this. I tumbled
about all night in a rage, when I thought how they had served me, and
of Hoxton's believing it all, and how he might only half give in to your
representation, and then I gloried in Anderson's coming down from his
height, and being seen in his true colours. So it went on till morning
came, and I got up. You know you gave me my mother's little 'Thomas
a Kempis'. I always read a bit every morning. To-day it was, 'Of four
things that bring much inward peace'. And what do you think they were?--

"'Be desirous, my son, to do the will of another
rather than thine own.
Choose always to have less rather than more.
Seek always the lowest place, and to be inferior
to everyone.
Wish always and pray that the will of God may be
wholly fulfilled in thee.'

"I liked them the more, because it was just like her last reading with
us, and like that letter. Well, then I wondered as I lay on the grass
at Groveswood, whether she would have thought it best for me to be
reinstated, and I found out that I should have been rather afraid of
what you might say when she had talked it over with you."

Dr. May smiled a little at the simplicity with which this last was said,
but his smile ended in one of his heavy sighs. "So you took her for your
counsellor, my boy. That was the way to find out what was right."

"Well, there was something in the place and, in watching poor Lake's
windows, that made me not able to dwell so much on getting on, and
having prizes and scholarships. I thought that caring for those had been
driven out of me, and you know I never felt as if it