t required--"

"I have given it just as much consideration as if I took five weeks to
it. A man may take an evening over a pint of ale, but it's only a pint,
after all,--don't you see that?"

M'Gruder was puzzled; perhaps there was some force in the illustration.
Tony looked certainly as if he thought he had said a clever thing.

"Well, Tony," said the other, after a moment of grave thought, "you 'll
have to go to Genoa to embark, I suppose?"

"Yes; the committee sits at Genoa, and every one who enrolls must appear
before them."

"You could walk there in four days."

"Yes; but I can steam it in one."

"Ay, true enough; what I mean to ask of you is this, that you will go
the whole way on foot; a good walker as you are won't think much of
that; and in these four days, as you travel along,--all alone,--you 'll
have plenty of time to think over your project. If by the time you reach
Genoa you like it as well as ever, I 've no more to say; but if--and
mark me, Tony, you must be honest with your own heart--if you really
have your doubts and your misgivings; if you feel that for your poor
mother's sake--"

"There, there! I've thought of all that," cried Tony, hurriedly. "I 'll
make the journey on foot, as you say you wish it, but don't open the
thing to any more discussion. If I relent, I 'll come back. There's my
hand on it!"

"Tony, it gives me a sad heart to part with you;" and he turned away,
and stole out of the room.

"Now, I believe it's all done," said Tony, after he had packed his
knapsack, and stored by in his trunk what he intended to leave behind
him. There were a few things there, too, that had their own memories!
There was the green silk cap, with its gold tassel, Alice had given him
on his last steeple-chase. Ah, how it brought back the leap--a bold leap
it was--into the winning field, and Alice, as she stood up and waved her
handkerchief as he passed! There was a glove of hers; she had thrown it
down sportively on the sands, and dared him to take it up in full career
of his horse; he remembered they had a quarrel because he claimed the
glove as a prize, and refused to restore it to her. There was an evening
after that in which she would not speak to him. He had carried a heavy
heart home with him that night! What a fund of love the heart must be
capable of feeling for a living, sentient thing, when we see how it can
cling to some object inanimate and irresponsive. "I'll take that glove
with me," mu