and nobler principles for support under my affliction than the mere stern sense of being wronged! how he soothed my irritation, and won me away from my sorrows! My young friend, it is not to be forgotten, and if there was bitterness in the cup pressed hard to my boyish lips, there was sweetness to be remembered too. 'Tis well nigh thirty years ago. I think--perhaps more, for your father married very early--and I have never seen him since; but I forget not one lineament of his face, one tone of his voice, one expression of his countenance, and you are very like him." As he spoke, the Earl extended his hand to Smeaton, and then added, "You now can see the causes of the interest I take in your fate. That interest will never diminish, and will always be active in your favour, whenever my duty to the land of my birth and the sovereign whom I serve will give it scope. I am obliged to make this reservation; for it is a rule that I have always acted upon, to suffer no personal feeling whatever to interfere with my actions as a public man. But I trust to your own good sense, to your own good feeling, to preserve you from any position in which your interests would be opposed to my duties." Smeaton replied not to the Earl's last words, but inquired, in a tone of real feeling, "How did this sad story end?" "Perhaps to my advantage," replied Lord Stair. "I recovered my calmness and composure of mind; never my light gaiety of heart. My own conscience acquitted me of any fault but boyish indiscretion; though the memory of having taken a brother's life remained as a dark cloud shading the too fervid heat of youth. I applied myself to intense study. I learned to think when others are dreaming. I sought abstraction from myself in the study of other men. I acquired in boyhood the mind of a man. The stream might be small, indeed, for it was not yet flooded by experience; but it was diverted from its natural channel by the rocks and precipices which surrounded it. At length, representations from my good tutor of the forced progress I had made, his overpraise of my character, disposition, and abilities, and his mild Christian expostulations against the injustice that was shown me, had their effect; and, at the end of several years, I was called back to my family. I returned with a feeling of dread and anxiety, which was not without cause; for, though I was nominally forgiven, I could see in all faces, I could hear in all tones, that what I had done was not forgotten--that a chilling memory existed of that dark accident, which extinguished all warm affection towards me. An opportunity of escape from such an icy dwelling soon presented itself, and I gladly seized it, by entering the army. Life was of little value to me--less so than to most of my companions; my previous studies gave me some advantages over them; and I became what I now am, succeeding to my father's honours and estates, on his sudden and somewhat mysterious death years ago.