ous
hospitality, but, feeling that I could not help myself till my leg
should recover, I became reconciled to it. Then, as time advanced,
the doctor--who was an experimental chemist, as well as a
Jack-of-all-trades--found me so useful to him in his laboratory, that I
felt I was really earning my board and lodging. Meanwhile Lilly Blythe
had been sent to visit an aunt of Dr McTougall's in Kent for the
benefit of her health.

This was well. I felt it to be so. I knew that her presence would have
a disturbing influence on my studies, which were by that time nearly
completed. I felt, also, that it was madness in me to fall in love with
a girl whom I could not hope to marry for years, even if she were
willing to have me at all, which I very much doubted.

I therefore resolved to put the subject away from me, and devote myself
heartily to my profession, in the spirit of that Word which tells us
that whatsoever our hands find to do we should do it with our might.

Success attended my efforts. I passed all my examinations with credit,
and became not only a fixture in the doctor's family, but as he
earnestly assured me, a very great help to him.

Of course I did not mention the state of my feelings towards Lilly
Blythe to any one--not being in the habit of having confidants--except
indeed, to Dumps. In the snug little room just over the front door,
which had been given to me as a study, I was wont to pour out many of my
secret thoughts to my doggie, as he sat before me with cocked ears and
demonstrative tail.

"You've been the making of me, Dumps," said I, one evening, not long
after I had reached the first round of the ladder of my profession. "It
was you who introduced me to Lilly Blythe, and through her to Dr
McTougall, and you may be sure I shall never forget that! Nay, you must
not be too demonstrative. When your mistress left you under my care she
said, half-jocularly, no doubt that I was not to steal your heart from
her. Wasn't that absurd, eh? As if any heart could be stolen from
_her_! Of course I cannot regain your heart, Dumps, and I will not even
attempt it--`Honour bright,' as Robin Slidder says. By the way, that
reminds me that I promised to go down to see old Mrs Willis this very
night, so I'll leave you to the tender mercies of the little
McTougalls."

As I walked down the Strand my last remark to Dumps recurred to me, and
I could not help smiling as I thought of the "tender mercies" to which