We left Booker Washington still looking forward with confidence to being admitted as a student at Hampton College and Industrial Institute. The resolution thus taken was the more extraordinary because the negro aspirant was still a mere boy, practically without means for such an ambitious enterprise, while he had no friends who could assist him in any adequate manner. He was also quite unused to travelling, and was so unacquainted with the map of his native State that he could not have pointed out the direction in which the town of Hampton lay. In point of fact, a cross-country journey would have to be taken, representing a distance about corresponding with that between London and Aberdeen. Under such unfavourable conditions even his hitherto heroic mother, whose strength seemed now to be declining, hardly thought that the thing could successfully be carried out. On the other hand, others rather encouraged the lad, at least to make the endeavour. Then, for some considerable time before the start was made, the outlook at Malden, so far as Booker Washington was himself personally concerned, had considerably improved. Instead of having to continue at the rough, or even dangerous, labour in which he had been compelled to engage, he obtained a situation in the household of a military officer, whose wife had gained the reputation of being a domestic martinet, the family otherwise being one of the chief in the town. The sequel proved, however, that common report is oftentimes not to be trusted; for while the ex-slave boy made an excellent house-servant, the discipline he underwent in the officer's house was just such as he needed, and could not fail to be beneficial to him.