rd once a week from Charlie; he kept clear of the more rackety of
his fellow-students; he spent his Sundays at Mr Newcome's house, and he
took plenty of healthy exercise both for body and mind.

With many examples about him of industry and success he determined to
make the most of his time as a student, and spoke of the life and sphere
of a country doctor, for which he was training, with the enthusiasm of
one whose heart is in his work.

"The more I think of it," he once wrote to his mother, who was residing
abroad for her health, "the more I take to it. A good doctor is the
best-liked man in his parish. Everybody comes to him in their trouble.
He gets into the best society, and yet makes himself loved by the
poorest. In four or five years at least I ought to get through my
course here, and then there is nothing to prevent my settling down at
once. By that time I hope you'll be well enough to come and keep house
for me, for all country doctors, you know, are bachelors," and so on.

All this was very well, and, as one of Tom's friends, I rejoiced to see
him thus setting himself in earnest to the duties of his calling. But I
rejoiced with trembling. Although he kept clear, for the most part, of
his fellow-students, choosing his friends charily and shyly, I could yet
see that he had no objection to contemplate from a distance the humours
and festivities of his more high-spirited companions. He was not one of
those impulsive fellows who shut their eyes and take a header into the
midst of a new good-fellowship, only to discover too late their error,
and repent their rashness at leisure.

No, Tom had his eyes open. He saw the evil as well as the good, and,
alas for him, having seen it, he looked still!

The students of Saint Elizabeth's Hospital were not on the whole a bad
set. On Tom's arrival in London, however, he had the firm impression in
his mind that all medical students were bad characters, and this foolish
notion did him much harm. If two or three of them were to go off for a
spree, his imagination would at once picture them in scenes and places
such as no respectable man would like to frequent, whereas, if the truth
were known, these misjudged young men had committed no greater crime
than that of taking a boat up the river, or a drive in a dog-cart. If a
group of them should be seen by him laughing and talking, he
instinctively concluded their topic must be ribaldry, whereas they would
perhaps be only