other.

Let us again glance at him when he has nearly attained to the age of
fourteen years. We find him grown a strong healthy youth, still
retaining that wondrous beauty which had rendered him so remarkable in
the days of his childhood.

The reader will doubtless be ready to enquire if his mind and character
are equally lovely with his person. Would that it were in my power to
give a favourable answer to the question. But the truth must be told,
and, at the age of fourteen, Ernest Harwood was decidedly a bad boy.
When of suitable age he had been put to school, and for a time made
rapid progress in his studies. From the first he was rather averse to
study, but as he learned readily and had a most retentive memory he
managed to keep pace in his studies with most boys of his age.

Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey exercised much watchfulness in regard to his
companions, as, when he began to mingle with other boys, they discovered
that he seemed inclined to make companions of such boys as they could
not conscientiously allow him to associate with. But, notwithstanding
their vigilance, it was soon remarked that he was often seen in company
with boys of very bad repute. He soon came to dislike school, and often
absented himself from it for a very trivial excuse, and in many
instances played truant, when Mr. Humphrey refused to listen to his
excuses for being allowed to remain at home.

Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey endeavored to discharge their duty to the boy; and
more than that, they loved him as their own child.

I cannot describe the sorrow they experienced on his account, when, as
he grew older, he seemed more and more inclined to the company of
vicious boys, and to follow their evil examples. Many of his misdoings
never reached the ears of his foster parents, for they were very much
respected by their neighbors, who disliked to acquaint them with what
must give them pain. He soon became so bad that if a piece of mischief
was perpetrated among the village boys, the neighbors used at once to
say they felt sure that Earnest Harwood was at the bottom of it. Often
when among his wicked companions, those lips that had been taught to
lisp the nightly prayer at his mother's knee were stained with oaths and
impure language.

Mr. Humphrey, one day, in passing along the street, chanced to find him
in company with some of the worst boys in the village, smoking cigars at
the street corner. He was hardly able to credit his own eyesight. He
requ