You were about to set out on a pedestrian tour.

I had, as you say, some pounds in my pocket; and thus I have passed with you the merriest days of my life." VANCE.--"What said your civil cousin when your refusal to go to college was conveyed to him ?" LIONEL.--"He did not answer my mother's communication to that effect till just before I left home, and then,--no, it was not his last letter from which I repeated that withering extract,--no, the last was more galling still, for in it he said that if, in spite of the ability and promise that had been so vaunted, the dulness of a college and the labour of learned professions were so distasteful to me, he had no desire to dictate to my choice, but that as he did not wish one who was, however remotely, of his blood, and bore the name of Haughton, to turn shoeblack or pickpocket--Vance--Vance!" VANCE.--"Lock up your pride--the sackcloth frets you--and go on; and that therefore he--" LIONEL.--"Would buy me a commission in the army, or get me an appointment in India." VANCE.--"Which did you take ?" LIONEL (passionately).

"Which! so offered,--which ?--of course neither! But distrusting the tone of my mother's reply, I sat down, the evening before I left home, and wrote myself to this cruel man.

I did not show any letter to my mother,--did not tell her of it.

I wrote shortly,--that if he would not accept my gratitude, I would not accept his benefits; that shoeblack I might be,--pickpocket, no! that he need not fear I should disgrace his blood or my name; and that I would not rest till, sooner or later, I had paid him back all that I had cost him, and felt relieved from the burdens of an obligation which--which--" The boy paused, covered his face with his hands, and sobbed.
Vance, though much moved, pretended to scold his friend, but finding that ineffectual, fairly rose, wound his arm brother-like round him, and drew him from the arbour to the shelving margin of the river.