ine
in society. Of his erudition they were proud, even to worship. The young
man never had any business, and his father never seemed to think of
giving him any; knowing, as Billy would say, that he had stamps enough
to "see him through." If Daniel liked, his father would have endowed
a professorship in some college and have given him the chair; but that
would have taken him away from his own room and the family physician.

Daniel knew how much his parents wished him to make a figure in the
world, and only blamed himself for his failure, magnanimously forgetting
that they had crushed out the faculties which enable a man to mint the
small change of everyday society in the exclusive cultivation of such as
fit him for smelting its ponderous ingots. With that merciful blindness
which alone prevents all our lives from becoming a horror of nerveless
reproach, his parents were equally unaware of their share in the harm
done him, when they ascribed to his delicate organization the fact that,
at an age when love runs riot in all healthy blood, he could not see a
balmoral without his cheeks rivaling the most vivid stripe in it. They
flattered themselves that he would outgrow his bashfulness, but Daniel
had no such hope, and frequently confided in me that he thought he
should never marry at all.

About two hours after Billy's disappearance under his mother's convoy,
the defender of the oppressed returned to my room bearing the dog under
his arm. His cheeks shone with washing like a pair of waxy Spitzenbergs,
and other indignities had been offered him to the extent of the brush
and comb. He also had a whole jacket on.

"Well, Billy," said I, "what are you going to do with your dog?"

"I don't know what I'm going to do. I've a great mind to be a bad,
disobedient boy with him, and _not_ have my days long in the land which
the Lord my God giveth me."

"O Billy!"

"I can't help it. They won't be long if I don't mind ma, she says; and
she wants me to be mean, and put Crab out in the street to have Patsy
catch him and tie coffee-pots to his tail. I--I--I--"

Here my small nephew dug his fist into his eye and looked down.

I told Billy to stop where he was, and went to intercede with Lu. She
was persuaded to entertain the angels of magnanimity and heroism in the
disguise of a young fighting character, and to accept my surety for
the behavior of his dog. Billy and I also obtained permission to go out
together and be gone the entire