w," said the boy, caressing the cold fingers within his
own hands, "it was in these midnight rambles of mine you caught the
terrible malady. As it ever has been, your fidelity is fatal to you. I
told you a thousand times that I was born to hard luck, and carried more
than enough to swamp all who might try to succor me.

"And don't I say, as the ould heathen philosopher did of fortune,
'Nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia'?" Is it necessary to say that the
speaker was Billy Traynor, and the boy his pupil?

"_Prudentia_," said the youth, scoffingly, "may mean anything, from
trickery to downright meanness; since, by such acts as these, men grow
great in life. _Prudentia_ is thrift and self-denial; but it is more
too,--it is a compromise between a man's dignity and his worldly
success--it is the compact that says, Bear _this_ that _that_ may
happen; and so I 'll none of it."

"Tell me how you fared with the Prefect," asked Billy.

"You shall hear, and judge for yourself," said the other; and related,
as well as his memory would serve him, the circumstances of his late
interview.

"Well, well!" said Billy, "it might be worse."

"I knew you 'd say so, poor fellow!" said the youth, affectionately;
"you accept the rubs of life as cheerfully as I take them with
impatience. But, after all, this is matter of temperament too. _You_ can
forgive,--I love better to resist."

"Mine is the better philosophy, though," said Billy, "since it will last
one's lifetime. Forgiveness must dignify old age, when your virtue of
resistance be no longer possible."

"I never wish to reach the time when I may be too old for it," said the
boy, passionately.

"Hush! don't say that. It's not for you to determine how long you are to
live, nor in what frame of mind years are to find you." He paused, and
there was a long unbroken silence between them.

"I have been at the post," said the youth, at last, "and found that
letter, which, by the Neapolitan postmark, must have been despatched
many weeks since."

Billy Traynor took up the letter, whose seal was yet unbroken, and
having examined it carefully, returned it to him, saying, "You did n't
answer his last, I think?"

"No; and I half hoped he might have felt offended, and given up the
correspondence. What have we to do with ambassadors or great ministers,
Billy? Ours is not the grand highway in life, but the humble path on the
mountain side."

"I'm content if it only lead upwards," said t