"I was only a little in dread of such a young lion! Comeback, Harry," and he took his hand.

"It was a bad piece of work, and it will never do for you to let yourself be drawn into every bit of mischief that is on foot; I believe I ought to give you a good lecture on it, but I can't do it, after such a straightforward confession.

You must have gone through enough in the last week, not to be likely to do it again." "Yes, papa--thank you." "I suppose I must not ask you any questions about it, for fear of betraying the fellows," said Dr.May, half smiling.
"Thank you, papa," said Harry, infinitely relieved and grateful, and quite content for some space to lean in silence against the chair, with that encircling arm round him, while some talk passed between his father and Margaret.
What a world of thought passed through the boy's young soul in that space! First, there was a thrill of intense, burning love to his father, scarcely less fondness to his sweet motherly sister; a clinging feeling to every chair and table of that room, which seemed still full of his mother's presence; a numbering over of all the others with ardent attachment, and a flinging from him with horror the notion of asking to be far away from that dearest father, that loving home, that arm that was round him.

Anything rather than be without them in the dreary world! But then came the remembrance of cherished visions, the shame of relinquishing a settled purpose, the thought of weary morrows, with the tempters among his playmates, and his home blank and melancholy; and the roaming spirit of enterprise stirred again, and reproached him with being a baby, for fancying he could stay at home for ever.

He would come back again with such honours as Allan Ernescliffe had brought, and oh! if his father so prized them in a stranger, what would it be in his own son?
Come home to such a greeting as would make up for the parting! Harry's heart throbbed again for the boundless sea, the tall ship, and the wondrous foreign climes, where he had so often lived in fancy.
Should he, could he speak: was this the moment?
and he stood gazing at the fire, oppressed with the weighty reality of deciding his destiny.
At last Dr.May looked in his face, "Well, what now, boy?
You have your head full of something--what's coming next ?" Out it came, "Papa will you let me be a sailor ?" "Oh!" said Dr.May, "that is come on again, is it?
I thought that you had forgotten all that." "No, papa," said Harry, with the manly coolness that the sense of his determination gave him--"it was not a mere fancy, and I have never had it out of my head.