"Good-bye now, old fellow! Do write to me soon, and forgive me, and believe me ever--Your most affectionate, Horace Upton. "P.S.--Is that jolly little Vernon going back to school with you this time? I remember seeing him running about the shore with my poor cousin when you were a home-boarder, and thinking what a nice little chap he looked. I hope you'll look after him as a brother should, and keep him out of mischief." Eric folded the letter sadly, and put it into his pocket; he didn't often show them his school letters, because, like this one, they often contained allusions to things which he did not like his aunt to know. The thought of Upton's leaving made him quite unhappy, and he wrote him a long letter by that post, indignantly denying the supposition that his friendship had ever done him anything but good. The postscript about Vernon suggested a thought that had been often in his mind. He could not but shudder in himself, when he thought of that bright little brother of his being initiated in the mysteries of evil which he himself had learnt, and sinking like himself into slow degeneracy of heart and life. It often puzzled and perplexed him, and at last he determined to open his heart, partially at least, in a letter to Mr Rose. The master fully understood his doubts, and wrote him the following reply-- "My Dear Eric--I have just received your letter about your brother Vernon, and I think that it does you honour. I will briefly give you my own opinion. "You mean, no doubt, that, from your own experience, you fear that Vernon will hear at school many things which will shock his modesty, and much language which is evil and blasphemous; you fear that he will meet with many bad examples, and learn to look on God and godliness in a way far different from that to which he has been accustomed at home. You fear, in short, that he must pass through the same painful temptations to which you have yourself been subjected; to which, perhaps, you have even succumbed.