"I wish I were out with the flowers in the garden," he said; "I think it is stupid being tucked up in bed in the summer. Allan is not in bed, is he? He says he is often called up, and has to cross the quadrangle to go to a great bare room where they bind up broken heads. Should you like to be a doctor, Essie?" "If I were a man," I returned, confidently, "I should be either a clergyman or a doctor; they are the grandest and noblest of professions. One is a cure of bodies, and the other is a cure of souls." "Oh, but they hurt people," observed Dot, shrinking a little; "they have horrid instruments they carry about with them." "They only hurt people for their own good, you silly little boy. Think of all the dark sick rooms they visit, and the poor, helpless people they comfort. They spend their lives doing good, healing dreadful diseases, and relieving pain." "I think Allan's life will be more useful than Fred's," observed Dot. Poor little boy! Constant intercourse with grown-up people was making him precocious. He used to say such sharp, shrewd things sometimes. I sighed a little when he spoke of Fred. I could imagine him loitering through life in his velveteen coat, doing little spurts of work, but never settling down into thorough hard work. Allan's descriptions of his life were not very encouraging. His last letter to me spoke a little dubiously about Fred's prospects. "He is just a drawing-master, and nothing else," wrote Allan. "Uncle Geoffrey's recommendations have obtained admittance for him into one or two good houses, and I hear he has hopes of Miss Hemming's school in Bayswater. Not a very enlivening prospect for our elegant Fred! Fancy that very superior young man sinking into a drawing-master! So much for the hanging committee and the picture that is to represent the Cameron genius. "I went down to Acacia road on Thursday evening, and dimly perceived Fred across an opaque cloud of tobacco smoke. He and some kindred spirits were talking art jargon in this thick atmosphere. "Fred looked a Bohemian of Bohemians in his gaudy dressing-gown and velvet smoking-cap. His hair is longer than ever, and he has become aesthetic in his tastes. There was broken china enough to stock a small shop. I am afraid I am rather too much a Philistine for their notions. I got some good downright stares and shrugs over my tough John Bull tendencies. "Tell mother Fred is all right, and keeping out of debt, and so one must not mind a few harmless vagaries." "Broken china, indeed!" muttered Uncle Geoff when I had finished reading this clause. "Broken fiddlesticks! Why, the lad must be weak in his head to spend his money on such rubbish." Uncle Geoffrey was never very civil to Fred.