Suddenly the boy, in a great outburst of boldness, flung himself before this great man of his childhood and arrested his progress.

"Oh, sir, tell me," he begged--"tell me what you're going to do!" The doctor never knew why he stopped to explain and parley.

He was conscious of no softening towards this boy, who had so repelled him with his covert rebellion, and had now been guilty of a much greater offence.

An appeal to a goodness which is not in him is to a sensitive and vain soul a stinging insult.

Doctor Prescott could have administered corporal punishment to this boy, who seemed to him to be actually poking fun at his dignity, and yet he stopped and answered: "I am going to take your house into my hands," said Doctor Prescott, "and your mother can live in it and pay me rent." "We can't pay rent any better than interest money." "If you can't pay the rent, I shall be willing to take that wood-lot of your father's," said Doctor Prescott.