1384 THE SHIPWRECK,

cherished towards him. It is true that since his recovery
Charles had conducted himself in a manner that inerited
on the part of his friend an unbounded attachment. Pride
and irascibility had given place to mildness and affability.
His conversation, devoid of pedantry or the ostentation of
superiority, possessed a charm that Philip felt to be irresis-
tible.

The latter had passed most of his years apart from those
of his own age and condition ; his morals were not sullied
by that vicious taint which evil associates communicate ;
and if perchance he found himself in the company of his
equals, their vices and their vulgarity had served only to
excite his pity or horror. His hours of leisure had been
almost all devoted to the recreation of his suffering sister,
or the perusal of the books his father’s limited library
contained.

The taste he had acquired since his sojourn on the island
for intellectual pursuits often made him remember with sor-
row the difference between Charles’s rank and his own lowly
condition. ‘It is impossible,” he would say to himself,
“that a youth of noble birth, of accomplished education
and fashionable manners, such as Charles, should ever
think of contracting a real and permanent friendship with
one in all respects so far inferior to him; though it is pro-