nt life from that which this fine, clever
high-spirited boy had imagined for himself, and he looked forward to the
prospect with settled despair. But he seemed now to regard himself as a
victim of destiny, regretting nothing, and opposing nothing, and caring
for nothing. He told Walter with bitter exaggeration "that he must
_indeed_ thank him for giving up the scholarship, as he supposed that it
had saved him from starvation. His guardian, who had a family of his
own, didn't seem to care a straw for him; and he had no friend in the
world besides."

And as, for days and weeks, he brooded over these gloomy thoughts and
sad memories, he fell into a weary, broken, aimless kind of life. Many
tried to comfort him, but they could not reach his sorrow; in their
several ways his school friends did all they could to cheer him up, but
they all failed. He grew moody, solitary, silent. Walter often sought
him out, and talked in his lively, cheerful, happy strain; but even
_his_ society Kenrick seemed to shun. He was in that morbid, unhealthy
state when to meet others inspires a positive shrinking of mind. He
seemed to have no pleasure except in shutting himself up in his study,
and in taking long lonely walks. He performed his house duties
mechanically, and by routine; when he read the lessons in chapel, his
voice sounded as though it came from afar, like the voice of one who
dreamed; he sat with his books before him for long hours, and made no
progress, hardly knowing the page on which he was employed. In school,
he sat listlessly playing with his pen, taking no notes, seeming as
though he heard nothing, and was scarcely aware of what was going on.
His friends could not guess what would come of it, but they grew afraid
for him when they saw him mope thus inconsolably, and pine away without
respite, till his eyes grew heavy, and his face pale and thin. He had
changed all his ways; he seemed to have altered his very nature; he
played no games, took no interest in anything, and dropped all his old
pursuits. His work was quite spiritless, and he grew so absent that he
forgot the commonest occupations of every day--living as in a waking
sleep.

Power and Walter, in talking of him, often wondered whether it was the
uncertainty of his future prospects which had thus affected him; and in
the full belief that this must have something to do with his morbid
melancholy, Power mentioned the matter to Dr Lane as soon as he had the