vicious boys, hopelessly dense boys, backward boys, idle, wool-gathering, foolish, blockish boys. Two lads had been expelled from Eton, but Roscoria thought himself a born reformer. A third youth had been recently superannuated: he was for ballast, Louis said. At first the young schoolmaster governed the wild set gently, having great faith in boyhood. Afterward he fell one afternoon upon a passage in Plato: "If he is willingly persuaded, well; but if not, like a bent and twisted tree, they make him straight by threats and blows."

Blows! Happy thought! "The influence of my mind and character on theirs has failed," Roscoria thought. "Go to, now; let us see whether there be not some animal magnetism by which a lad may be drawn toward the good." And Roscoria felt up and down his strong young arm, and knew a complacent sense of muscle.

At this time Roscoria met again, and liked as well as ever, Dick Tregurtha.

Tregurtha had grown sun-browned, tall, and broad. Tregurtha had merry blue eyes and a winsome grin. One was happy to shake hands with a man who was obviously on such good terms with his own heart and conscience.

"You helped me to run away from school, you know," he said, holding out his hand to Roscoria when they first met again.

"Yes; did I serve you well by that?" asked Roscoria, who had grown into what our ancestors called "a pretty fellow," with features as correct as his own morality, and a pair of dreamy black eyes.

"You did; I've not forgotten it. Here is your knife in token."

"And here is yours. Come and dine with me."

And the two young men got into a corner and foregathered together, and the friendship renewed by romance was riveted firm by reason.

This is the one important feature in these two young men, and the one point that distinguishes them from others. Now passionate natures know no "friends," nor commonplace ones either. A friend is only granted to philosophers.

When a sociable hunting-man asked the other day, "How do you make a friend? I never had one; I never wanted one," at least he knew what he was talking about. And indeed, few people want a friend, and there are many other sentiments to satisfy the unworthy. Is not love perennial, a thing as common as June roses? Acquaintanceship is necessary; affection is a partially inevitable state. But friendship ever was, as it is now, the rarest gift beneath the sun. Ask any one, all the same, who has ever known an assured friend, whether he would give him up for any pleasure or profit.

Why, see how the theme of Friendship makes even Montaigne serious and eloquent. Observe how it has attracted great minds of all descriptions. If Byron could be brought to affirm that "Friendship is love without his wings"—well, there must be something in it.

Friendship is for two of the same sex, during the difficult period of middle life. Of course the friendship should have been formed during youth, but then it will have been kept in abeyance, as it were, gradually forming into a solid rock to rest upon after the quicksands of love have been settled somehow. Then will it be found:

No wonder it is rare, for if such a glowing glory of content were often known among us, this world would grow too orderly, and men would all be angels for the sake of Friendship!

II.

ARLETTA OF FALAISE.

"Tregurtha," said his friend one summer evening, "to-morrow is a holiday. The boys are all off on various expeditions, assisted by boats, donkeys, butterfly nets, or tins with worms. Even that little plague Tom Rodda is going, under the charge of a trusty sailor, for a day's shrimping. Now, in the midst of this general mouse-play, what is to become of the cat—meaning me? The pedagogue ought to go off on the spree like every one else. I am sure he is the hardest worked. You are with me; let us somehow celebrate your arrival ashore. We must go somewhere not haunted by the boys. Boys are my aversion, as you know; besides, if one meets them abroad they are in mischief. One has to cut up rough, and the result is that greatest of earth's failures, a spoilt holiday. What say you, O comrade, to a day's fishing in the Lyn?"

"I don't say much," replied Tregurtha; "but if you will excuse me, I shall go and look up my flies."

"6.30 a. m. Don't oversleep yourself," said Roscoria, chuckling youthfully, as he shook Tregurtha by the hand.

Hard as disciplinarian Roscoria ever found it to arise on work-a-days, when getting out of bed meant reading prayers in a stentorian hoarse voice, and then administering an hour's Greek before breakfast, no such difficulty attended his leap from the arms of Morpheus when he heard Tregurtha's thundering knock on this most halcyon Saturday.

"Propitious heavens, keep but this face all day!" was Louis' greeting to as fair an angler's sky as ever ushered in a holiday. Off clattered the companions in a hired and rakish-looking vehicle; Tregurtha in the front seat chaffing the driver, and Roscoria on an insecure perch behind, swinging his legs, beaming on his fly-book, and altogether presenting an aspect of radiant boyishness wholly incompatible with his grave scholastic calling. Up and down they went, walking up the hills to spare the worthy horse, dashing down them in true Devonshire fashion; past woods and down to the sea at Lynmouth, there to alight, drink cider, and buy fishing tickets. Then on again, rolling along the beautiful road to Watersmeet, where the trees were all in brightest foliage and the wildest flowers thick amidst the grass. The morning sun was sucking up the rain of last night from the glittering leaves, and a pensive breeze hovered in the air, causing the birds to sing.

"Hey, Roscoria! but I hope it's not too bright!" was the remark the glory of the day evoked from his companion.

"Tregurtha, do not tempt the gods; the day is heavenly, and if we do not dine on trout to-night——" The remainder of Roscoria's song of praise was abruptly cut short, for in assuming too negligent an attitude for greater convenience of harangue he had overbalanced himself, and now lay prone on the road some twenty yards behind. Having picked himself up and dusted his hat, Roscoria reascended in more cautious vein, whilst the driver cheered on his horse, reflecting on the probable results of matutinal cider on a youth whose ordinary "habit" was the Pierian spring.

After what seemed to these artists of the greenheart-wand an unconscionably long, though lovely drive, the lowest point was reached where it is of any use to rig up a rod—namely, that nice little field through which the river runs so sweetly, just before you come to Brendon. Here our two holiday-makers descended, with many a parting gibe at their good-natured jehu. Then down they sat in the moist grass, after the manner of men under thirty, and out each drew a bulging pocket-book. Thereafter, silence, save for such murmurs as: "Hallo, I don't believe this reel runs smoothly!" "Where is that penknife?" "Tregurtha, lend us a blue upright if you value my happiness!" and so on in that delightful, half-excited talk that precedes trial of one's luck.

Noon approached; the two young men were fishing steadily, separated by several pools; now and then they passed each other with a cheery jest or an absent-minded greeting, according as they happened to be engrossed in their sport, or only idly lashing at the water. Now Tregurtha was on in front, in a fragrant meadow, with some interested lambs for his spectators. He was musing sleepily as he cast his line, for fish in the Lyn do