was one of the pleasures of
Julian's life constantly to receive letters of this kind from former
school-fellows, thanking him for past kindnesses of which he was wholly
unconscious from the simple and natural manner in which they had been
done. It need hardly be said that he at once complied with the request
which the letter contained, and that, (next to De Vayne's), his own was
the largest contribution towards the handsome sum which the Hartonians
and other Saint Werner's men cheerfully subscribed to assist their
former comrade in his hour of need.

To avoid all unnecessary wounding of Bruce's feelings, the money thus
collected was transmitted to the Doctor to be placed at Bruce's
disposal. It completed the sum requisite for his outfit, and there was
no longer any obstacle in the way of his immediate departure from
England. He at once booked his passage by an emigrant ship, and sailed
from England. The day after his departure, Julian received from him the
following letter:--

"Dear Julian--Although you are one of those who would `do good by
stealth, and blush to find it fame,' I am not ignorant of the debt of
gratitude which I owe to you for providing me with the means of
recovering my fortunes, and beginning life afresh in another
hemisphere.

"Our lots in life, since at Harton we ran a neck and neck race, have
been widely different, and while the happy months have been rolling
for _you_ on silver wheels, and the happy hours speeding by you with
white feet, to me Time has been:--

"`A maniac scattering dust,
And Life a Fury slinging flame.'

"How much I have gone through in the last year--the accumulated agony
of remorse, bereavement, and ruin--no human soul can tell. No wonder
my bark was wrecked after such mad and careless navigation; but, thank
God, the blow of the tempest that staggered and shattered it, and
drove it on the reefs, has not sunk it utterly, and now, like a waif
or stray, it is being carried to be refitted across a thousand leagues
of sea.

"I am not the Bruce you knew, but a wiser, sadder, and better man. I
have not yet lost all hope. The old book of my life was so smutched
and begrimed--torn, dogs-eared, and scrawled over--that it was
scarcely worth while to turn over a new leaf. I have rather began a
new volume altogether, and trust, by God's blessing, that when `Finis'
comes to be written in it, some few of the pages will bear re-per