ive away these clouds, and let us all be happy
once more."

"It's of no use to try, mother; I shall never be happy here, tied down
to a desk. It's like being uncle's slave."

"What am I to say to you, Don, if you talk like this?" said Mrs
Lavington. "Believe me you are wrong, and some day you will own it.
You will see what a mistaken view you have taken of your uncle's
treatment. There, I shall say no more now."

"You always treat me as if I were a child," said Don, bitterly. "I'm
seventeen now, mother, and I ought to know something."

"Yes, my boy," said Mrs Lavington gently; "at seventeen we think we
know a good deal; and at forty we smile as we look back and see what a
very little that `good deal' was."

Don shook his head.

"There, we will have no more sad looks. Uncle is eager to do all he can
to make us happy."

"I wish I could think so," cried Don, bitterly.

"You may, my dear. And now, come, try and throw aside all those
fanciful notions about going abroad and meeting with adventures. There
is no place like home, Don, and you will find out some day that is
true."

"But I have no home till I make one," said the lad gloomily.

"You have an excellent home here, Don, the gift of one who has kindly
taken the place toward you of your father. There, I will listen to no
more from you, for this is all foolish fighting of your worse against
your better self."

There was a quiet dignity in his mother's words which awed Don for the
moment, but the gentle embrace given the next minute seemed to undo that
which the firmness had achieved, and that night the cloud over the lad's
life seemed darker than ever.

"She takes uncle's side and thinks he is everything," he said gloomily,
as he went to bed. "She means right, but she is wrong. Oh, how I wish
I could go right away somewhere and begin life all over again."

Then he lay down to sleep, but slumber did not come, so he went on
thinking of many things, to fall into a state of unconsciousness at
last, from which he awoke to the fact that it was day--a very eventful
day for him, but he did not awaken to the fact that he was very blind.

CHAPTER THREE.

AN AWKWARD GUINEA.

It was a busy day at the yard, for a part of the lading of a sugar ship
was being stored away in Uncle Josiah's warehouses; but from the very
commencement matters seemed to go wrong, and the state of affairs about
ten o'clock was pretty ably expressed by Jem Wimble, who came up