“344 UNOPENED PARCELS,

“The oddest thing of all,” pursued my father,
“ was, that up to almost the last moment of giving
me this account my hero was perfectly unconscious
of this part of the lesson it taught. I literally
had to ‘point the moral and adorn the tale’
myself by asserting its glorious confirmaticn of
those words of Tennyson, which he had begun by
disputing! Nor can I ever forget the triumphant
delight with which I first saw his old view of
himself waver and fall.

““But how am I to shake off the black a
who will jump on my back when I think of it ?
he objected.

“<Turn him a beautiful sky-blue, cried I
(alluding to a story of a witty child who said he
had done so when he recovered his temper), ‘ by
telling your mother” His countenance fell for one
brief moment. ‘What will she think of me?
That’s dreadful” ‘What do J think of you,’ cried
I, ‘who am only your friend?’ The argument
was unanswerable, and when that was settled, and
I had boldly told him he stood before me a living
example of what Tennyson had proclaimed to all