ear, as quite threw him out of his heroics. This, happening just at the moment the other children came up, it was hailed by acclamation; for Tom was, although a great favorite, the torment of the whole school.

"We will settle for this one of these days!" he said in a somewhat subdued tone; but quickly recovering his vivacity, he added; "and even now I will repay good for evil; and he seized and kissed in spite of her, the hand that smote him.

At the door of Mrs. Hyde, the mother of Victor, the happy group, after lingering a while became thoughtful; for the moment of parting had now come; and they bade each other farewell, with the bright, but evanescent tears of childhood, or early youth, which have less of sorrow in them, than of hope.

CHAPTER II.

"For a' that, and a' that,

Our toil's obscure and a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,

THE MAN'S THE GOLD for a' that."

BURNS.

Nor many days after the scene alluded to in the last chapter, two boys met on the village green. "How are ye, Vic?" said the older and taller of the two.

"So, so, Tom!" replied the other, lifting his cap, and loosening the hair, which was now matted into thick curls by the perspiration; but I have had a deuc-ed hard time of it; and, to say the truth, Tom, I have wanted your help not a little.

"How is it, Vic, the old matter of the fession come up again?"

pro

"Yes; and, thank fortune, it is settled, at

"You have given up the point, then, I take it?"

"Not at all. I have fought manfully; but I have won them all over now; or established

a truce with them at least. My grandmother was there, with all the old aristocratical notions, which she has kept bottled up for pressing emergencies ever since the Revolution. There too was the minister, talking about my father's dignity, and my mother's feelings. My cousin Kate, too, stood on the ground, with a host of notions, about esteem, and fashion, and gentility; which I did'nt understand; and, for that matter, I don't believe she did. Kate is a belle; and, of course, her opinion must be sound, Last and strongest of all against me, was my dear mother, with her too great fondness her too high opinion of me.

"And so, Vic, you are resolved upon taking a subordinate station in life," said a third, who joined the two boys as, arm in arm, they were proceeding across the common together. "How do you think some of your noble born relations will feel, when riding through the streets of some great city, they read the spruce sign, 'Victor Hyde, House Carpenter?' And how will a certain fair school-mate relish that, eh, Vic? Now don't you think such a high-sounding name as Victor Hyde, ought to be associated with Attorney at Law, or Doctor, or Reverend, at the least."

"Reverend, at the least! you ought to be

ashamed of that, to put the sacred profession last."

"But does not the Great Book say the first shall be last? However, that's not answering my question.

"For the first, then, I trust that no crime, no wrong, no meanness, will ever be associated with the name of Victor Hyde, let it stand how, or where it may; and the esteem which its own real worth cannot command, I neither wish for, nor expect.

"Why to be sure you have a world of great words, just at your tongue's end, and can beat me out and out, talking; but I know what's what, after all. I say, then, Vic, you are mad to think of throwing away such a good chance as you have of going to college; or even of going into a store, where you might have the finest chaps in Washington street for company, AS I DO;" and the incipient fop flourished a rattan, nearly as possible as he had seen others of a like stamp do.

"I know, Mr. George Henry Wilton," returned our hero, somewhat ironically, "that you have been educated in one of the most genteel shoe-stores in all Boston; and I ought, perhaps, to bow, at once, to such high author

ity; but I'm an odd fellow, and must have my

66

"Tell me if you are really in your senses?" continued Wilton, disregarding, or probably not understanding the irony. Perhaps you do not know that mechanics are not respected at all in genteel city circles. You have not had the happiness the advantage of living two years in Boston, you know! Besides, I am almost three years older than you — and just going into business for myself; and, of course, I am better able to judge; and he pulled up his false collar, and adjusted his highly perfumed locks, with an air which is easily acquired by those who are never disquieted, by the action of any redundancy of brain.

"No, not of course;" was the cool reply. "I feel myself the best qualified to judge for myself; and, especially, in a matter that touches my private taste, and my peculiar situation."

"You are right!" said Tom, whose better sense had been shocked by the foppery and superficial airs of the counter graduate. "And here's my hand, with my word of honor, Vic, that the lawyer shall never look down upon the carpenter; which, indeed, would be a pretty