est. How feeble is the chance, that its hopes will be fulfilled!
Enough, if it lose not all its loftier aspirings, as well as its
brighter expectations."

Nothing more aroused the proud and fiery temper of Walter Lester than
the tone of superior wisdom and superior age, which his rival assumed
towards him. More and more displeased with his present companion, he
answered, in no conciliatory tone, "I cannot but consider the warning
and the fears of one, neither my relation nor my friend, in the light of
a gratuitous affront."

Aram smiled as he answered,

"There is no occasion for resentment. Preserve this hot spirit, and high
self-confidence, till you return again to these scenes, and I shall be
at once satisfied and corrected."

"Sir," said Walter, colouring, and irritated more by the smile than the
words of his rival, "I am not aware by what right or on what ground you
assume towards me the superiority, not only of admonition but reproof.
My uncle's preference towards you gives you no authority over me. That
preference I do not pretend to share."--He paused for a moment, thinking
Aram might hasten to reply; but as the Student walked on with his usual
calmness of demeanour, he added, stung by the indifference which he
attributed, not altogether without truth, to disdain, "And since you
have taken upon yourself to caution me, and to forebode my inability
to resist the contamination, as you would term it, of the world, I tell
you, that it may be happy for you to bear so clear a conscience, so
untouched a spirit as that which I now boast, and with which I trust in
God and my own soul I shall return to my birth-place. It is not the holy
only that love solitude; and men may shun the world from another motive
than that of philosophy."

It was now Aram's turn to feel resentment, and this was indeed an
insinuation not only unwarrantable in itself, but one which a man of
so peaceable and guileless a life, affecting even an extreme and rigid
austerity of morals, might well be tempted to repel with scorn and
indignation; and Aram, however meek and forbearing in general, testified
in this instance that his wonted gentleness arose from no lack of
man's natural spirit. He laid his hand commandingly on young Lester's
shoulder, and surveyed his countenance with a dark and menacing frown.

"Boy!" said he, "were there meaning in your words, I should (mark me!)
avenge the insult;--as it is, I despise it. Go!"

So high and lofty wa