s irregularity and neglect, and, intending
to pay more attention in future, he had charged his wife to keep him
mindful of his duties.

"You will scarcely reach Ballintray before one o'clock, Herbert," said
she, in her habitually timid tone.

"What if I should not try? What if I throw up the beggarly office at
once? What if I burst through this slavery of patrons and chairmen and
boards? Do you fancy we should starve, Grace?"

"Oh, no, Herbert," cried she, eagerly; "I have no fears for our
future."

"Then your courage is greater than mine," said he, bitterly, and with
one of the sudden changes of humor which often marked him. "Can't you
anticipate how the world would pass sentence on me, the idle debauchee,
who would not earn his livelihood, but must needs forfeit his
subsistence from sheer indolence?--ay, and the world would be right too.
He who breaks stones upon the highroad will not perform his task the
better because he can tell the chemical constituent of every fragment
beneath his hammer. Men want common work from common workmen, and there
are always enough to be found. I'll set out at once."

With this resolve, uttered in a tone she never gainsaid or replied to,
he took his hat and left the cottage.

There is no more aggressive spirit than that of the man who, with the
full consciousness of great powers, sees himself destined to fill some
humble and insignificant station, well knowing the while the inferiority
of those who have conquered the high places in life. Of all the
disqualifying elements of his own character, his unsteadiness, his
want of thrift, perseverance, or conduct, his deficiency in tact or due
courtesy, his stubborn indifference to others,--of all these he will
take no account as he whispers to his heart,

"I passed that fellow at school!--I beat this one at college!--how often
have I helped yonder celebrity with his theme!--how many times have I
written his exercise for that great dignitary!" Oh, what a deep well
of bitterness lies in the nature of one so tried and tortured, and how
cruel is the war that he at last wages with the world, and, worse again,
with his own heart!

Scarcely noticing the salutations of the country people, as they touched
their hats to him on the road, or the more familiar addresses of the
better-to-do farmers as they passed, Layton strode onwards to the little
village where his dispensary stood.

"Yer unco late, docther, this morning," said one, in that rebuk