I said romantic and painful histories were common enough; there had been some, even in our matter-of-fact family. But he was not so inquisitive as I; nor should I have told him further; we never speak on this subject if we can help it. Even the Grantons--our intimate friends ever since we came to live at Rockmount--have never been made acquainted with it. And Penelope said there was no need to tell Augustus, as it could not affect him, or any person now living, and, for the sake of the family, the sad story was better forgotten. I think so, too. With a sigh, I could not help observing to Doctor Urquhart, that it must be a very happy thing to have a brother--a good brother. "Yes. Mine was the best that any one ever had. He was a minister of the Kirk--that is, he would have been, but he died." "In Scotland?" "No--at Pau, in the Pyrenees." "Were you with him?" "I was not." This seemed a remembrance so acutely painful, that shortly afterwards I tried to change the subject, by asking a question or two about himself,--and especially what I had long wanted to find out--how he came by that eccentric Christian-name. "Is it eccentric?--I really never knew or thought after whom I was called." I suggested, Max Piccolomini. "Who was he, pray? My improfessional reading has been small. I am ashamed to say I never heard of Max Piccolomini." Amused by this _naive_ confession of ignorance, I offered jestingly to give him a course of polite literature, and begin with that grandest of German dramas, Schiller's Wallenstein. "Not in German, if you please; I don't know a dozen words of the language." "Why, Doctor Urquhart, I must be a great deal cleverer than you." I had said this out of utter incredulity at the ludicrous idea; but, to my surprise, he took it seriously. "You are right. I know I am a coarse, uneducated person; the life of an army-surgeon allows few opportunities of refinement, and, like many another boy, I threw away my chances when I had them." "At school?" "College, rather." "Where did you go to college?" "At St. Andrews." The interrogative mood being on me, I thought I would venture a question which had been often on my mind to ask--namely, what made him choose to be a doctor, which always seemed to me the most painful and arduous of professions. He was so slow in answering, that I began to fear it was one of my too blunt queries, and apologized. "I will tell you, if you desire it. My motive was not unlike one you once suggested--to save life instead of destroying it; also, because I wished to have my own life always in my hand. I cannot justly consider it mine. It is _owed._"