rable, as a cure for
self-will, that a young man should battle against his inclinations;
nothing could be more baneful than pampering the flesh. No help, then,
was to be expected from any quarter.

Gabriel was sauntering down the alley, quite crestfallen under his heavy
burden of books, when at some distance his eye caught sight of some one
on horseback, whom he soon recognized, and who was coming along the road
behind the farm. It was Uncle Richard on Don Juan.

Gabriel started off at once, forgetting in a moment his heavy burden of
books and care, and thinking only on the merriment and good cheer which
Uncle Richard always brought with him. He determined to hasten off to
the kitchen to tell Miss Cordsen, and then to go in to his father; for
Gabriel knew well that the bearer of the news of his uncle's arrival was
always welcome.

"Lord save us!" cried Miss Cordsen. "Make up the fire, Martha;" and off
she ran to get a clean cap.

"All right, my boy!" said Consul Garman, giving Gabriel a friendly nod.

Gabriel was well pleased at the effect of his intelligence. He had
actually surprised Miss Cordsen into an impropriety, in which he seldom
succeeded; and his father, who was generally undemonstrative, had
greeted him with more than usual warmth.

The young Consul, as he was generally called from the time when his
father, the old Consul, was alive, was not so tall as his younger
brother, and while the latter had grown stouter in the course of years,
the former seemed to have got thinner and smaller. His hair was smooth,
thin, and slightly grey, carefully brushed so as to make the most of it.
His eyes were keen, and of a light blue colour; and his lower jaw was
somewhat prominent. Smoothly shaved and well brushed, with stiff white
neckcloth, shining boots, and silver-headed cane, there was something
about his whole appearance which told of prosperity. Every word, every
movement, even the peculiarly characteristic one with which he adjusted
his chin in his stiff neckcloth, was the picture of propriety and
precision. Precision was, in fact, a word which seemed made for the
young Consul; both his appearance and his career reflected it to the
uttermost fibre.

With his extensive business and large fortune, Consul Garman had also
inherited a boundless admiration and respect for his father, Morten W.
Garman, the old Consul, who had come into the property of Sandsgaard at
a time when it was of little value, and considerably