It was not well
for the imaginative and sickly youth to be left to his own wild and
untutored fancies; but there was no help for it now, and he gave himself
up to his studies and his dreams, looking no longer for sympathy from
those around him, but gathering inward strength and self-dependence with
every struggle for the mastery over his sensitive and morbid nature.

Little, however, as there was in Archie's home to aid him in his efforts
after a higher attainment, he was not without a hidden but blessed
influence. His mother's grave was just without the city, in the
beautiful cemetery, and thither his weary feet often wandered when he
was spared from his labor early enough, or on the precious Sunday, the
day of days, especially to the poor. Glorious monuments of the most
elaborate workmanship, temples, and majestic columns, and angel figures,
were all nothing to Archie compared to the simple mound that told him of
an undying love for the lonely and crippled one. No marble arose there
in wonderful grace and beauty, no reclining seraph imaged the departed
saint; but low down, beneath the green turf was the heart that leaped at
the advent of her first-born son, and the eye that overlooked the
blemish that all other eyes seemed to dwell upon, and the hand that was
laid upon his head in the last sad moment. Naught else was needed to the
few souls that cared for her memory. Was she not ever before them in the
garb of purity and love! and yet among the boy's visions was a sacred
spot remote from the common ground where necessity had placed his
idolized parent, and a slab that should speak of a son's gratitude, and
shrubs and flowers around to breathe their sweet odor above the lowly
bed. So long as his mother's memory was kept fresh and green within him
Archibald Mackie was not cut off wholly from the companionship and
sympathy that is a need of every nature.

CHAPTER IV.

The afternoon had been uncommonly sultry and oppressive, so that even
the plants and trees appeared to droop and wither, and all about the
city were hot and tired people lagging homeward as if every energy were
utterly exhausted. Archie had been working unusually hard, so that the
old pain had seized his back again, making him miserably despondent lest
he should be wholly crippled, and thrown quite broken and helpless upon
his struggling relatives, and he was panting toward the quarter of the
city where his shelter was, with slow and weary steps,