"He's been making his mark, I quite expect; no one could help observing the boy had splendid capabilities. Do you still think of making a lawyer of him?" continued the visitor. "I don't know what to do with him; I'm fairly puzzled. It's true enough, as you say, he has splendid capabilities, and might become anything he chose; but he settles to nothing, and as for making his mark at school, he's done it with a vengeance." Mrs. West frowned from the bottom of the table, but Mr. West took no notice, and continued: "His education and his private bills have cost me a pretty penny." "Private bills! What has a school-boy to do with private bills?" asked the guest. "Oh, bills for champagne suppers and cigars, on the sly, of course; the young rascal says the other fellows do it, and he must, and I've had to pay the piper. I told him last term he would have to stop his extravagance and settle to hard work, but he seems in no way inclined to do that, and I've had more than one complaint of him from head-quarters." "Well, papa, Roland's only a boy yet, and we mustn't expect him to be as wise as his father," expostulated Mrs. West, in a tone of irritation. "No, my dear, we must not and do not, but when I was his age----" "You were perfect, of course," finished Mrs. West; "pray find some other topic of conversation than the little weaknesses of your son." "Little weaknesses!" Ah! thus had Roland's grave faults and his early tendencies to evil courses been glossed over by the false kindness of a fond parent, until now, at the early age of sixteen, few would have recognised in the boisterous stripling, with swaggering gait and eyes already lustreless, the once lovely boy, whose childish years had given the fair promise of a golden future. Choosing for himself companions rife for mischief and folly, on leaving school he indulged in those pursuits, from which, though most congenial, he had been greatly debarred during his seclusion. Now he began, as he termed it, to enjoy life. Each evening he sought the exciting scenes of revelry and debauch, and neither his father's stern reproaches nor the tearful pleadings of his mother, moved him to more than a passing thought of the ruin which he was inevitably working out for himself. But when his constitution had become weakened by excesses, there came into his life influences that were mighty in their gentle drawing towards all that was good and noble.