marvellous tales of the wild and
wilful things which he and his former school-fellows had done. Many and
many a scheme of sin and mischief at Roslyn was suggested, planned, and
carried out, on the model of Ball's reminiscences of his previous life.

He had tasted more largely of the tree of the knowledge of evil than any
other boy, and, strange to say, this was the secret why the general
odium was never expressed. He claimed his guilty experience so often as
a ground of superiority, that at last the claim was silently allowed.
He spoke from the platform of more advanced iniquity, and the others
listened first curiously, and then eagerly to his words.

"Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." Such was the temptation
which assailed the other boys in dormitory Number 7; and Eric among the
number. Ball was the tempter. Secretly, gradually, he dropped into
their too willing ears the poison of his immorality.

In brief, this boy was cursed with a degraded and corrupting mind.

I hurry over a part of my subject inconceivably painful; I hurry over
it, but if I am to perform my self-imposed duty of giving a true
picture, of what school-life _sometimes_ is, I must not pass it by
altogether.

The first time that Eric heard indecent words in dormitory Number 7, he
was shocked beyond bound or measure. Dark though it was, he felt
himself blushing scarlet to the roots of his hair, and then growing pale
again, while a hot dew was left upon his forehead. Ball was the
speaker; but this time there was a silence, and the subject instantly
dropped. The others felt that a "new boy" was in the room; they did not
know how he would take it; they were unconsciously abashed.

Besides, though they had themselves joined in such conversation before,
they did not love it, and, on the contrary, felt ashamed of yielding to
it.

Now, Eric, now or never! Life and death, ruin and salvation, corruption
and purity, are perhaps in the balance together, and the scale of your
destiny may hang on a single word of yours. Speak out, boy! Tell these
fellows that unseemly words wound your conscience; tell them that they
are ruinous, sinful, damnable; speak out and save yourself and the rest.
Virtue is strong and beautiful, Eric, and vice is downcast in her awful
presence. Lose your purity of heart, Eric, and you have lost a jewel
which the whole world, if it were "one entire and perfect chrysolite,"
cannot replace.

Good spirits guard tha