tious towards ten o'clock, on the utter worthlessness of university education, and the flagrant partiality shown on all occasions in the awarding of splendid prizes to men who were mere creatures, minions, parasites, and that kind of thing. For his part he thought, indeed he was sure, that Home Education followed up by a good course of law-reading under the superintendence of an able practical lawyer, was the best training for a gentleman of fortune, who was destined by his position to take the law into his own hands. The maritimelooking attorney was skilled in the winds and the compass of inland, every-day life, and he soon perceived on this occasion where the wind lay. He rendered the good night which he gave, more cordial and more endurable by the request that the youth would look upon that house as his home while in town, and bring his portmanteau early to-morrow. The door closed, but Charles felt as if it had caught his coat tail, he could hardly manage to move from the steps; he was sure he had forgotten something, and he was right, for he had left his heart behind him. When he knew that his handkerchief and cane and the crumpled little rose- —which he had found on the stairs and stolen from the purest misconception of the person who had dropped it—were all safe, he wondered what could have made him think that he had left something behind, then shook himself off the door-steps and fairly ran all the way to his inn, rushed up stairs at such a pace that the beetle-browed waiter who was lounging about the door winked at his retreating shadow, and knew the young gent had been dining out; and when he had entombed himself in his dark bed-room, he breathed out furious and contemptuous defiance at Malkin and Classics, and Tutor and Oxford; snapped his finger at the whole pack of them, and gave himself up to the indescribable, insane joy of his first love. The morning brought with it—reflection, and his father. Reflection came first, and as is nearly always the case after a particularly delightful evening, it was no welcome visitor. He had a vague impression that he had made a fool of himself not only before the astute lawyer, but (far worse) in the judgment of that sweet Sarah also. And then his thoughts travelled back, in spite of his over-night defiance, to Malkin and Oxford, to

the lean-faced tutor, and his own frightful failure. Was he, who at that moment might be the standing joke of a thousand of England's noblest and wisest youth; was he the dishonoured candidate ;—the humbled, because once presumptuous aspirant; he afraid to look his father in the face; was he the man to win or to attempt to win a prize so rich and fair, so loved and honoured, so self-sustained and clear-conscienced, so innocent, so unpretending and yet so full of charm and wisdom, and even piety? Oh, if he had but conquered in the race, if he had but heeded counsel, if he had but husbanded his strength, if he had but kept the key of his cupboard in his pocket that morning! How different might all have been ! Even the bronzed-faced lawyer had seemed to twit him when he said, He supposed that examination was about coming on, and he hoped to hear that the son of his friend was placed first; and she had added with playful glee, "Oh, yes, you must be first ; I would never be anything but first if I were a man." Did she know ; was it roguery? Then it was malice, and he would not think of her. He wouldn't go near the grim oldlooking buccaneer, nor his fat wife, nor his mealy-faced daughter-not he. He'd stay where he was, in bed, in an inn for ever and ever; never go home, never write to his father. He didn't care what happened, it made no difference to him. He wasn't going to be laughed at and bullied, he'd die first, and he rang the bell for his coffee and toast, as if he meant to haul the landlord and waiter, as well as his breakfast up stairs with the bell-pull.

"Hot water, Sir?"

"Don't want any; bring me my breakfast."

hated her; he

"There's an old gentleman waiting down stairs to see you, Sir, he says he's your father; to that I can't speak; he was for coming up to your bed-room; but not knowing how you might be with him, I wouldn't tell him the number."

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Oh, dear, what shall I do? I daren't meet him. I wonder if he's heard. He must have done. He's been to Oxford, and that scoundrel told him all, and put him on the scent-and-well, but it'll save me the trouble. Heigh, I say, waiter!"

"You may tell the gentleman the number, and show him up; but never mind the coffee. I'll come down to it."

And that functionary pronounced the individual inside to be a fool; for he retained the derogatory conviction which he had too hastily formed on the previous night, that the young spark was very drunk, and would have been all the better for a cup of something hot to settle his stomach, and make him all right for a row with his father.

CHAPTER IV.

THE CANKER AT THE CORE.

IN a few minutes that father entered; but the beetle-browed waiter would have wondered (though he was a father on an extensive scale himself) to see that sweet glad smile, and to hear thar melodious voice-"God bless you, my Charles; I came on from Oxford last night; I was afraid you might be sad, and I could not rest till I had seen you. I know you

have failed, but I failed when I was older than you; and, besides, I had all the requisite training. Never mind, my dear boy; they say—even Malkin says-he was afraid of you, -that if you had not been so afraid of yourself, he would have had good reason for his fear."

"Oh father, don't speak so kindly to me; it cuts me to the heart. I was so sure-so proud; I thought how you would rejoice to know that in that little world so dear to your memory your son was the first in the learning you had trained him to acquire and love so intensely. I gave all to win, and I lost all. I have no heart to try any more; it would kill me, or drive me mad. I am not far from it as it is."

"Hush Charles, my dear; I will not hear you speak thus ; you do not know the pang that makes my heart ache, when you speak so low and look so lost. I love you more for your failure than I should have done if you had brought home to Arlton the news of success. I would rather my son were still

the humble student who distrusted his own stores of learning till he failed from the anxiety of modesty, than that he should gain an Olympian crown. Hundreds like you have failed, but none so amiably. One only could win. Would you change with Malkin altogether? He has no father—a mother stricken with palsy in her mid-life, with but scanty means of living, and her son is her all; or, tell me, my generous boy, would you have been happy to have robbed the widow's son of that which has brought such comfort to her home, and such proud thanksgiving to her lips? Could you have enjoyed your triumph, when you heard that his heart was broken, and his prospects for all time blasted? No, I know my boy too well."

"I worked so hard, father. It was wrong, I know; but I staked my all, father, and I lost," and he hid his face from the father's gentle smile.

He wrestled with his pride; but he was too shaken to throw it then. He saw, in the darkness of the moment, the old genius of his ambition, and he cowered down away from her reproachful and mournful glance. Oh, it was an hour of confliet in which none might help, and in which he was worsted. His frame had been greatly enfeebled by his unwise night-work at Oxford, and all the powers of his mind seemed now to share in the prostration. No serious illness befel him; but a morbid reluctance to enter into society of any kind, and even into conversation with his father. Mr. Barton was as incompetent as ever to manage such a case; but his unbounded pity went a long way in softening the mental pain which he could not quite understand, and for which all his knowledge suggested no remedy. He watched with the keenest solicitude the quick changes of that variable mood; but he had only one measure to apply to them all. His memory retained the most vivid recollections of one case in all its symptoms; and even had he possessed a large experience in dealing with aberrations of the mind and moral disease, his anxious, timid love would have been sure to refer every symptom in his boy to the dreadful standard of the mother's madness; and thus he was deceived. He suffered his jealous anxiety to be lulled, because he discovered none of that wild irascible and all defying fury which had aforetime laid one heart in ashes.

But, in truth, the melancholy which had fallen upon Charles was hardly a less serious evil; in some respects it was much worse, for when insanity in its worst forms has seized upon the victim, we may even find comfort in its very excesses, assured that whatever may be the distress occasioned to us by the semblance of agony, the victim has lost the capacity of pain; the greatness of the suffering has hastened the suffering to an end; the storm may rage with ten-fold strength, but it has done its worst already-its victim sleeps beneath. At any rate, the sense of submission to a mysterious will is more easily kept alive in this case of extremity-when we reflect that all human effort is vain-that in all the blasphemy, and falsehood, and unbelief, of delirium, there is no sin. The day of sin may, indeed, have set among these lowering clouds; but there is no sin now. On the other hand, the frailty of this young mind was the result, in some measure, of his own folly; there was a shade of criminality resting on his unhappy condition, something of poltroonery and unmanliness in yielding himself so soon to the sway of bitter fancies-to sentimental indolence-to that peevishness, discontent, and recklessness, which, if anything could ever justify, it could only be a long life of wear and tear-of a thousand disappointments, each a thousand times more heavy than that which he had just known. Whatever may have been the amount of predisposition to irregular and ill-balanced feelings inherited from his mother, we cannot gain relief by indulging in mere compassion. We know that God had left him a power which might have been, if faithfully cultivated, more than sufficient to counteract the insidious tendency of his mind.

At this distance we can discover much to blame both in the father and in the son, though we may be ready enough to exonerate the one when we remember his youth and physical exhaustion, and to view the lack of wisdom in the other, through the favourable medium of his abundant love. We tremble for the manhood and the immortality of the young man, when we see him so comfortless and crushed by the first rugged obstacle in life; hardly less, when we see the father nursing the wounded spirit into an unnatural sensibility,