shelter him.

Very early the next morning Roland came to Eric's room, saying,--

"I have a favor to ask."

"Tell me what it is. I will grant it if I can."

"You can. Let us forget all our books to-day, and come with me to the
castle."

"Now?"

"Yes; I have a plan. I want to see myself how it is. Let me, just this
one day."

"Let you do what?"

"I want to work like the masons' apprentices up there. I don't want to
eat and drink anything except what they do, and I want to carry loads
up and down like them."

Eric went to the castle with Roland, but on the way, he said,--

"Roland, your purpose is good, and your wish pleases me, but now
consider. You are not undertaking the same work as the men yonder, but
work much harder, for you are not accustomed to it; this one day would
bring ten times as much fatigue to you as to them, for you come to it
from different circumstances. What is habit to them is new to you, and
doubly difficult; and, moreover, you are not like them, for you have
been tenderly and carefully nurtured; your bed is wholly unlike theirs;
you have tender hands; it is quite a different sort of strength which
you possess. So you would not learn what poor people feel, who have
nothing but their native energy to help them support life."

Roland stood still, and there was an echo of what he had read in the
night in the question, as he asked with a troubled voice, "What shall I
do then, to make my own the life of my fellow-men?"

Eric was struck by his tone, and by the form of his question; he could
not tell Roland how happy he felt, but he was sure at this moment that
a soul, which bore and cherished such desires within it, could never go
far astray, nor lose the sense of the union and mutual dependence of
mankind. He restrained himself from expressing his feeling, however,
and said,--

"Dear Roland"--he had never before said dear Roland--"the world is a
great labor-association; the same task is not laid upon all of us,
but it is enjoined on every one to feel himself the brother of his
fellow-men, and to know that he is the guardian of himself and of his
brothers. What we can do is, to prepare ourselves and hold ourselves
ready to stand by our brother's side, and reach out a hand to him as
often as the call may come. The work which will one day be yours is
different from that of the laborers yonder, who carry stone and mortar;
your work is greater, and more productive of happiness. Come, the time