r mother in her deep widow's weeds,
with a countenance that never smiled but when she looked on me--and
then, in such wan and woful sort, as the sun when he glances through an
April cloud,--were it not, I say, that her mild and matron-like form
and countenance forbid such a suspicion, I might think myself the son of
some Indian director, or rich citizen, who had more wealth than grace,
and a handful of hypocrisy to boot, and who was breeding up privately,
and obscurely enriching, one of whose existence he had some reason to be
ashamed. But, as I said before, I think on my mother, and am convinced
as much as of the existence of my own soul, that no touch of shame could
arise from aught in which she was implicated. Meantime, I am wealthy,
and I am alone, and why does my friend scruple to share my wealth?

Are you not my only friend? and have you not acquired a right to share
my wealth? Answer me that, Alan Fairford. When I was brought from the
solitude of my mother's dwelling into the tumult of the Gaits' Class at
the High School--when I was mocked for my English accent--salted with
snow as a Southern--rolled in the gutter for a Saxon pock-pudding,--who,
with stout arguments and stouter blows, stood forth my defender?--why,
Alan Fairford. Who beat me soundly when I brought the arrogance of an
only son, and of course a spoiled urchin, to the forms of the little
republic?--why, Alan. And who taught me to smoke a cobbler, pin a losen,
head a bicker, and hold the bannets?--[Break a window, head a skirmish
with stones, and hold the bonnet, or handkerchief, which used to divide
High School boys when fighting.] Alan, once more. If I became the pride
of the Yards, and the dread of the hucksters in the High School Wynd,
it was under thy patronage; and, but for thee, I had been contented with
humbly passing through the Cowgate Port, without climbing over the
top of it, and had never seen the KITTLE NINE-STEPS nearer than from
Bareford's Parks. [A pass on the very brink of the Castle rock to the
north, by which it is just possible for a goat, or a High School boy,
to turn the corner of the building where it rises from the edge of the
precipice. This was so favourite a feat with the 'hell and neck boys'
of the higher classes, that at one time sentinels were posted to prevent
its repetition. One of the nine-steps was rendered more secure because
the climber could take hold of the root of a nettle, so precarious were
the means of passin