ome to influence you at all, sir? Why should you have had
any thought but for the game you were playing, and how it behoved you
to play it? How came I and these gentlemen to stand between you and your
real object, if it were not that a craven dread of consequences had
got the ascendancy in your mind? If men were to be beset by these
calculations, if every fellow carried about him an armor of sophistry
like this, he 'd have no hand free to wield a weapon, and the world
would see neither men who storm a breach nor board an enemy. Till a man
can so isolate and concentrate his faculties on what he has to do that
all extraneous conditions cease to affect him, he will never be well
served by his own powers; and he who is but half served is only half
brave. There are times when the unreasoners are worth all the men of
logic, remember that. And now go and sleep over it."

He motioned me to withdraw, but I could not bear to go till he had
withdrawn the slur he had cast on me in the word coward. He looked at me
steadfastly, but not harshly, for a moment or two, and then said,--

"You are not to think that it is out of regret for a lost sum of money I
have read you this lecture. As to the wager itself, I am as well pleased
that it ended as it did. These gentlemen are not rich, either of them. I
can afford the loss. What I cannot afford is the way I lost it."

"But will you not say, sir, that I am no coward?" said I, faltering.

"I will withdraw the word," said he, slowly, "the very first time I
shall see you deal with a difficulty without a thought for what it may
cost you. There; good-night; leave me now. I mean to have a ride with
you in the morning."

And he nodded twice, and smiled, and dismissed me.

There was nothing, certainly, very flattering to me in this reception.
It cost me dearly while it lasted, and yet--I cannot explain why--I came
away with a feeling of affection for my father, and a desire to stand
well in his esteem, such as I had not experienced till that moment. It
was his utter indifference up to this that had chilled and repelled me.
Any show of interest, anything that might evidence that he cared what I
was or what I might become, was so much better than this apathy that I
welcomed the change with delight. Accustomed to the tender solicitude of
a loving mother, no niggard of her praise, and more given to sympathize
than blame, the stern reserve of my father's manner had been a terrible
reverse, and over