d watched their amusing actions; then he
went to his horse, and stood quietly leaning on his neck for a long
time. Strange thoughts rolled tumultuously through the boy's brain.
The horse and dog are yours; only what one can buy and possess is his
own.

Like a flash of lightning, just seen, then gone again, there woke in
the boy's soul the idea that nothing but love can give one human being
possession of another. He was not used to steady thinking, and this
into which he had fallen brought on a real headache. He had his horse
saddled, and rode off over the road which Eric and the doctor had
taken.

CHAPTER X.

THE PRACTICAL NATURE.

Eric sat quiet and thoughtful by the doctor's side, and was disturbed
by no word from him, seeming to himself to be driven hither and thither
by wind and wave. A few days before, he had ridden to this place on a
stranger's horse, and now he sat in a stranger's carriage; he had
become intermingled with the life and destiny of so many persons, and
this could no longer count for anything in his and their existence. He
could not anticipate, however, that an unexpected event was awaiting
him.

"You believe then in education?" asked the doctor at last.

"I don't understand what you mean."

"I place no dependence whatever on education; men become what nature
fits them to be. They attain, under all relations, what is called their
destiny. As the human being lies in his cradle, so he lies in his
coffin. Some little help comes from talents and capabilities, but as a
whole they are only incidental; the natural bias gives the home blow."

Eric had no heart to enter upon these discussions; he was weary of this
everlasting game of words.

The doctor continued:--

"I have a peculiar grudge against these people; it vexes me that these
rich people should buy for themselves the fragrant fruits of higher
culture; then, again, I am consoled by the word of Him who stood at the
very centre of thought, and said, 'A rich man cannot enter into the
kingdom of God.' The rich are too heavily ballasted; they have a
pampered existence, they are removed far from the actual needs of life,
and they withdraw themselves from the natural influences of the
seasons; they flit into different climates and out of them again, and
everywhere they have comfortably prepared swallow-nests. It would be an
intolerable heartlessness of fate, if, without any irksom