but how many days will it take
ere you reach that city?"

"Twelve or fourteen at least, if I go on foot. There, Nelly, do not help
me, dearest; I shall not have you tomorrow to fasten these straps."

"This is not to be forgotten, Frank; it's Kate's present. How sorry she
will be not to have given it with her own hands!" And so saying, she
gave him the purse her sister had worked.

"But there is gold in it," said the boy, growing pale with emotion.

"Very little, Frank dearest," replied she, smiling. "A cadet must always
have gold in his purse, so little Hans tells us; and you know how wise
he is in all these matters."

"And is it from a home like this that I am to take gold away!" cried he,
passionately.

"Nay, Frank, you must not persuade us that we are so very poor. I
will not consent to any sense of martyrdom, I promise you." It was not
without difficulty she could overcome his scruples; nor, perhaps, had
she succeeded at all, if his thoughts had not been diverted into another
channel by a light tapping at the door. It was Hans Roeckle come to
awake him.

Again and again the brother and sister embraced; and in a very agony of
tears Frank tore himself away, and hastened down the stairs. The next
moment the heavy house door banged loudly, and he was gone.

Oh, the loneliness of mind in which he threaded his way through the dark
and narrow streets, where the snow already lay deeply! With what sinking
of the heart he turned to look for the last time at the window where the
light the only one to be seen still glimmered. How little could all the
promptings of hope suffice against the sad and dark reality that he was
leaving all he loved, and all who loved him, to adventure upon a world
where all was bleak and friendless!

But not all his dark forebodings could equal hers from whom he had just
parted. Loving her brother with an affection more like that of mother
than sister, she had often thought over the traits of his character,
where, with many a noble gift, the evil seeds of wrong teaching had
left, like tall weeds among flowers, the baneful errors of inordinate
self-esteem and pride. Ignorant of the career on which he was about to
enter, Ellen could but speculate vaguely how such a character would be
esteemed, and whether his native frankness and generosity would cover
over, or make appear as foibles, these graver faults. Their own narrow
fortunes, the very straits and privations of poverty, with all their
cr