our days at the office in Coleraine. Only think, Herbert, and I
fretting and fretting over his silence."

"Is he well?" asked he, half gruffly.

"Quite well, and so happy; in the midst of kind friends, and enjoying
himself, as he says he thought impossible when absent from his
home. Pray read it, Herbert. It will do you infinite good to see how
cheerfully he writes."

"No, no; it is enough that I know the boy is well. As to being happy,
it is the affair of an hour, or a day, with the luckiest of us."

"There are so many kind messages to you, and so many anxious inquiries
about the laboratory. But you must read them. And then there is a bank
order he insists upon your having. Poor fellow! the first money he has
ever earned--"

"How much is it, Grace?" asked he, eagerly.

"It is for twenty pounds, Herbert," said she, in a faltering accent,
which, even weak as it was, vibrated with something like reproach.

"Never could it be more welcome," said he, carelessly. "It was
thoughtful, too, of the boy; just as if he had known all that has
happened here." And with this he opened the door, taking hurriedly from
her hand the letter and the money-order. "No; not this. I do not want
his letter," said he, handing it back to her, while he muttered over the
lines of the bank check. "Why did he not say,--or order?" said he, half
angrily. "This necessitates my going to Coleraine myself to receive it.
It seems that I was overrating his thoughtfulness, after all."

"Oh, Herbert!" said she, pressing both her hands over her heart, as
though an acute pain shot through it.

"I meant what I have said," said he, roughly; "he might have bethought
him what are twelve weary miles of road to one like me, as well as that
my clothes are not such as suit appearance in the streets of a town. It
was _not_ thoughtful of him, Grace."

"The poor dear boy's first few pounds; all that he could call his own--"

"I know that," broke he in, harshly; "and in what other way could they
have afforded him a tithe of the pleasure? It was a wise selfishness
suggested the act; that is all you can say of it."

"Oh, but let me read you how gracefully and delicately he has done it,
Herbert; how mindful he was not to wound one sentiment--"

"'Pay to Herbert Layton, Esquire,'" read he, half aloud, and not heeding
her speech. "He ought to have added 'M. D.'; it is as 'the doctor' they
should know me down here. Well, it has come right opportunely, at all
events.