broken!--Tut-tut--it was but a bruised feather! See what life leaves behind it, when all is, done!--a summary of positive facts far out of the region of sorrow and suffering, linking themselves with the being of the world. Yes, biography is the medicine here! Roland, you said you would try my prescription--here it is,"--and my father took up a book, and reached it to the Captain. My uncle looked over it--_Life of the Reverend Robert Hall_. "Brother, he was a Dissenter, and, thank heaven, I am a church-and-state man, back and bone!" "Robert Hall was a brave man, and a true soldier under the great commander," said my father artfully. The Captain mechanically carried his forefinger to his forehead in military fashion, and saluted the book respectfully. "I have another copy for you, Pisistratus--that is mine which I have lent Roland. This, which I bought for you to-day, you will keep." "Thank you, sir," said I listlessly, not seeing what great good the _Life of Robert Hall_ could do me, or why the same medicine should suit the old weatherbeaten uncle, and the nephew yet in his teens. "I have said nothing," resumed my father, slightly bowing his broad temples, "of the Book of Books, for that is the _lignum vitæ_, the cardinal medicine for all. These are but the subsidiaries: for, as you may remember, my dear Kitty, that I have said before--we can never keep the system quite right unless we place just in the centre of the great ganglionic system, whence the nerves carry its influence gently and smoothly through the whole frame--THE SAFFRON BAG!" CHAPTER XLIV. After breakfast the next morning, I took my hat to go out, when my father, looking at me, and seeing by my countenance that I had not slept, said gently-- "My dear Pisistratus, you have not tried my medicine yet." "What medicine, sir?" "Robert Hall." "No, indeed, not yet," said I, smiling. "Do so, my son, before you go out; depend on it, you will enjoy your walk more."