d _neglected_
substituted in its place--ah! Louis, Louis, you should have said
_feared_ to present to him before his departure. He threw himself upon
the indulgence of a parent, who he knew would be as ready to pardon the
errors, as he was able to understand the temptation to which youth was
exposed, when deprived of parental guidance.

The letter dropped from Mr. Gleason's hand. A dark cloud gathered on his
brow. A sharp pain darted through his heart. His son, his ingenuous,
noble, high-minded boy had deceived him--betrayed his confidence, and
wasted, with the recklessness of a spendthrift, money to which he had no
legitimate claims.

When Louis entered college, and during the whole course of his education
there, Mr. Gleason had defrayed his necessary expenses, and supplied him
liberally with spending money.

"Keep out of debt, my son," was his constant advice. "In every
unexpected emergency apply to me. Debt unnecessarily recurred is both
dishonorable and disgraceful. When a boy contracts debts unknown to his
parents, they are associated with shame and ruin. Beware of temptation."

Mr. Gleason was not rich. He was engaged in merchandise, and had an
income sufficient for the support of his family, sufficient to supply
every want, and gratify every wish within the bounds of reason; but he
had nothing to throw away, nothing to scatter broadcast beneath the
ploughshare of ruin. He did not believe that Louis had fallen into
disobedience and error without a guide in sin. Like Eve, he had been
beguiled by a serpent, and he had eaten of the fruit of the tree of
forbidden knowledge, whose taste

"Brought death into the world,
And all our woe!"

That serpent must be Clinton, that Lucifer, that son of the morning,
that seeming angel of light. Thus, in the excitement of his anger, he
condemned the young man, who, after all, might be innocent of all guile,
and free from all transgression.

Crushing the papers in his hand, he saw a line which had escaped his eye
before. It was this--

"I cannot tell you where to address me, as we are now on the wing.
I shall write again soon."

"So he places himself beyond the reach of admonition and recall,"
thought Mr. Gleason. "Oh! Louis, had your mother lived, how would her
heart have been wrung by the knowledge of your aberration from
rectitude! And how will the kind and noble being who fills that mother's
place in our affections and home, mourn over her weak and