t he felt, for the
first time, that wealth was neither to be despised nor to be gloried
in. All his teachers, hitherto, had endeavored to impress upon him
either the one view or the other.

Joseph came to the tower, and asked whether Eric and Roland wished to
dine together in their room; he was answered in the affirmative. They
were happy, sitting together, and Roland cried:--

"We two dwell upon an island; and if I ever live in the castle, you
must also live with me. Do you know what one thing more I want?"

"How! you want one thing more?"

"Yes; Manna ought to be with us. Don't you think she is now thinking of
us?"

"Probably not of me."

"Yes, indeed! I have written to her about you, and this evening I am
going to write again, and tell her everything."

Eric was puzzled, for a moment: he did not know what he ought to do.
Ought he to restrain the boy from writing about him? There was no
reason for doing so, and he would not disturb Roland's impartial
candor.

CHAPTER II.

A SPIRIT'S VOICE BY NIGHT.

Roland was writing in his room, and, as he wrote, frequently uttering
the words aloud to himself. Eric sat silent, looking at the lamp. What
was the use now of wishing? He stood in front of the unpacked books;
there were but few. During the last fifteen minutes before going to the
train, he had gone once more into his father's study, and locked up the
papers left by him; glancing his eye around the library, he took down a
book, the first volume of Sparks's handsome edition of the works of
Benjamin Franklin. This volume contained the autobiography and the
continuation of the life. Some leaves were inserted in the handwriting
of his father.

And now he read, on this the first night of his new occupation, these
words,--

"Look at this! Here is a real man, the genius of sound understanding
and of steadfast will. Electricity is always here in the atmosphere,
but does not concentrate itself and become visible lightning.

"This is genius. Genius is nothing but electricity collected in the
atmosphere of the soul.

"With this book a man would not be alone, if he were alone on an
island; he would be in the midst of the world.

"No philosopher, no poet, no statesman, no artisan, no member of the
learned professions, and yet all of these combined in one; a pet son,
with Nature for his mother and Experience for his nurse; an outcast
son, who, without scie