"See," resumed the old man, "this stream which flows so quietly at our feet. Within an hour it mingles with the troubled waters of the St. Lawrence, and in a few days it will be writhing under the scourge of the Atlantic storms. Behold therein an image of our life! Thy days hitherto have been like the current of this stream; but soon you will be tossed on the great river of life, and will be carried into the ocean of men, whose waves rage ceaselessly. I have watched you from child-hood up; I have studied your character minutely, and that is what has caused me to seek this conversation. Between your character and mine I have found the closest resemblance. Like you, I was born kind-hearted, sympathetic, generous to a fault. How has it come that these virtues, which should have secured me happiness, have rather been the cause of all my ills? How comes it, my son, that these qualities, so applauded among men, have risen against me as my most implacable enemies and beaten me to the dust? I can not but think that I deserved a kindlier fate. Born, like you, of rich and loving parents, I was free to follow my every inclination. Like you, I sought nothing so much as the love of those about me. Like you, in my childhood I would not willingly injure the most insignificant of God's creatures, and to the beggar child I gave the very clothes I wore. Needless to add that, again like you, my hand was ever open to all my comrades, so that I was said to have 'nothing of my own.' It is curious to consider that, at the hands of my playfellows, I never tasted ingratitude. Is ingratitude the attribute only of the full-grown man? Or is it a snare which this human nature casts about the feet of generous childhood, the better to despoil the prey when grown to be a richer prize! But, no; it is impossible that youth could be so depraved. "And you, Jules," continued the old man after this semi-soliloquy, "have you yet experienced the ingratitude of those you have befriended, the ingratitude which pierces the heart like a blade of steel?" "Never," said the young man. "It is self-interest, then, bitter fruit of civilization, which causes ingratitude; the more a man needs, the more ungrateful he becomes. This reminds me of a little story. About twenty years ago a poor savage of the Huron tribe came to me in a pitiable state. It was spring. He had made a long and painful march, he had swum the icy streams when overheated, and as a result he was seized with a violent attack of pleurisy, accompanied by inflammation of the lungs. I judged that only a copious bleeding could save him, and I made shift to bleed him with my penknife. In a word, with care and simple remedies, I effected a cure; but his convalescence was slow, and he stayed with me more than two months. In a little while André and I could talk to him in his own tongue. He told me that he was a great warrior and hunter, but that fire-water had been his ruin. His thanks were as brief as his farewells: