dvise you to
oppose him in his determination. You must keep him here till
vacation, and next term he can exchange his room. Macbeth's company
will never be very agreeable to him, I should judge; and it will not
do to let him destroy the picture."

Thorne puffed away vigorously for a minute or two.

"That boy ought to turn preacher, Mac. He touched me nearer just now
than I have been touched for an age.

"'His voice was a sweet tremble in mine ear,
Made tunable with every saddest grief,
Till those sad eyes, so spiritual and clear,'

almost persuaded me to follow the example of divine Achilles and
'refresh my soul with tears.' He has that tear-bringing privilege of
genius, to a certainty."

And so it seemed, indeed; for presently the worthy Mr. Buckhurst made
his reappearance in quite a sad state, mopping his red face and
swollen eyes most vigorously with a figured cotton handkerchief, and
proclaiming, with as much intelligibility as the cold in his head and
the peculiar circumstances of the case would admit of, that he'd "be
dagg'd ef he hadd't raver be chucked idto _two_ cadawls dad 'ave dat
iddocedt baby beggid his pardod about de codfouded duckid! Wat de
hell did _he_ care about gittid wet, he'd like to kdow?
Dodsedse!--'twad all dud id fud, adyhow!"

----"And now _you_, my dear, dear friends," said Clarian, turning his
sad, full eyes upon us, and calling us to his side, and to his arms.

But I shall draw a veil over that interview.

That night, after we had talked long and lovingly together, and were
now sitting, each absorbed in his own thoughts, and emulating the
quiet that reigned around college, Clarian softly joined us, and
placed an open book in Mac's hands.

"Will you, dear Mac?" murmured he.

Then Mac, all full of solemn emotion, read through the grand periods
of the Church Litany, and when he had finished, Clarian, with a
thrilling "Let us pray," offered up such a thanksgiving as I had
never heard, praying to the kind Father who had so mercifully
extricated him, that our paths might still be enlightened, and our
walks made humble and righteous.

"Clarian," said Mac, after a pause, when we were again on our feet,--
he laid his hands on the boy's shoulders, as he spoke, and looked
into his eyes,--"Clarian, would it have happened, if you had not
taken that foul drug?"

Clarian shuddered, and covered up his face in his hands.

"Do not ask me, dear Mac! do not ask me! Oh, be sure, my aims,