I'll work night and day sooner than not
pass, for I _must_ be an officer. You know, mamma, we've settled it all.
Honorius is to be a doctor, like papa, and I'm to be a soldier, and
Willie is to be a clergyman, and Duncan a sailor, and Seymour a
merchant, and Archie a lawyer, and Georgie--somehow we never can settle
what Georgie is to be--but something, of course, you know; and then you
will have us all, mamma, your seven sons, "seven Campbells," as Willie
has taken a fit for saying, and we shall make you so proud of us!'

'I hope so; but, my Johnnie, we must not forget that if my seven are
spared to me, and I to them, it will be by GOD'S great mercy.'

[Illustration]

CHAPTER II.

JOHNNIE'S PROTEGE.

JOHNNIE completed his task in two or three days, labouring at it at
first very earnestly, then growing tired, getting careless, and finally
finishing it up in a hurry, with so little effort at accuracy of
rendering or clearness of style, that any one less sanguine than he
would have considered the attainment of the half-crown hopeless.
Honorius glanced over the translation, and shook his head ominously,
wishing that he might be allowed to make some improvements in it; but
his father's injunction to Johnnie to accept no help put this out of the
question, so it was delivered into Dr. Campbell's hands just as it was.
The first part was very satisfactory. 'Very good, very good indeed,
Johnnie!' he exclaimed as his eye ran rapidly down the neatly written
lines; but his face lengthened as he went on. 'Why, how you have begun
to scribble here, Johnnie!' he said as he reached the middle. 'And what
_do_ you mean by this? You have not even given the sense of this passage
correctly. Here, take the book and translate it to me word by word.'

Johnnie stumbled wofully in his rendering, not from confusion, but from
sheer ignorance; and both the written and verbal translation went on
getting worse and worse, till at last the Doctor, who was rather a hasty
man, lost all patience, and tossed the whole production into the fire,
exclaiming, 'Pshaw! far from deserving any reward, that translation is
the most wretched exhibition of carelessness and idleness that I ever
saw. I don't know what's to become of you, Johnnie, if you can't, or
rather _won't_, do better than that!'

The little boys glanced at poor Lackland in terror and dismay, and
Willie's eyes filled with tears; but Johnnie only coloured, and,
shutting up the volume of C