Having referred to her husband in these terms, Mrs. Thorpe next reverted to herself. She mentioned the receipt of a letter from Zack; but said it had done little towards calming her anxiety and alarm. Feeling certain that Mr. Blyth would be the first friend her son would go to, she now begged him to use his influence to keep Zack from abandoning himself to any desperate courses, or from leaving the country, which she greatly feared he might be tempted to do. She asked this of Mr. Blyth as a favor to herself, and hinted that if he would only enable her, by granting it, to tell her husband, without entering into details, that their son was under safe guidance for the present, half the anxiety from which she was now suffering would be alleviated. Here the letter ended abruptly; a request for a speedy answer being added in the postscript. “Now, Zack,” said Valentine, after he had related the result of his visit to Baregrove Square, and had faithfully reported the contents of Mrs. Thorpe’s letter, “I shall only add that whatever has happened between your father and me, makes no difference in the respect I have always felt for your mother, and in my earnest desire to do her every service in my power. I tell you fairly--as between friends--that I think you have been very much to blame; but I have sufficient confidence and faith in you, to leave everything to be decided by your own sense of honor, and by the affection which I am sure you feel for your mother.” This appeal, and the narrative which had preceded it, had their due effect on Zack. His ardor for a wandering life of excitement and peril, began to cool in the quiet temperature of the good influences that were now at work within him. “It shan’t be my fault, Blyth, if I don’t deserve your good opinion,” he said warmly. “I know I’ve behaved badly; and I know, too, that I have had some severe provocations. Only tell me what you advise, and I’ll do it--I will, upon my honor, for my mother’s sake.” “That’s right! that’s talking like a man!” cried Valentine, clapping him on the shoulder. “In the first place, it would be no use your going back home at once--even if you were willing, which I am afraid you are not. In your father’s present state your return to Baregrove Square would do _him_ a great deal of harm, and do _you_ no good. Employed, however, you must be somehow while you’re away from home; and what you’re fit for--unless it’s Art--I’m sure I don’t know. You have been talking a great deal about wanting to be a painter; and now is the time to test your resolution. If I get you an order to draw in the British Museum, to fill up your mornings; and if I enter you at some private Academy, to fill up your evenings (mine at home is not half strict enough for you)--will you stick to it?” “With all my heart,” replied Zack, resolutely dismissing his dreams of life in the wilds to the limbo of oblivion. “I ask nothing better, Blyth, than to stick to you and your plan for the future.”