"Then do not let us have secrets from each other any longer, dearest Percy," pleaded Herbert, twining his arm round his neck, and looking with affectionate confidence in his face. "I do not at all see why my secret must comprise more worth and kindness than yours. You talk of folly, and I have fancied for some days that you are not quite happy; but you often blame yourself so much more than you deserve, that you do not frighten me in the least. You said, last night, you wished you were more like me; but, indeed, if you were, I should be very sorry. What would become of me without your mirth and liveliness, and your strength and ever-working care to protect me from any thing like pain, either mentally or bodily? I should not like my own self for my brother at all." "Nor I myself for mine," replied Percy, so strangely cheered, that he almost laughed at Herbert's very novel idea, and after listening with earnest interest to his story, took courage and told his own. Herbert in this instance, however, could not comfort him as successfully as usual. The satire was the terrible thing; every thing else but that, even the disobedience of the debt, he thought might be easily remedied by an open confession to his father; but that unfortunate oversight in not looking over his papers before he sent them to Mr. Harris, the seeming utter impossibility to stop their circulation, was to both these single-hearted, high-principled lads something almost overwhelming. It did not in the least signify to either that Percy might never be known as their author. Herbert could not tell him what to do, except that, if he could but get sufficient courage to tell their father, even if he could not help them, he was sure it would be a great weight off his mind, and then he gently reproached him for not coming to him to help him discharge his debt; it was surely much better to owe a trifle to his brother than to Mr. Harris. "And, to gratify my extravagance, deprive you of some much purer and better pleasure!" replied Percy, indignantly. "No, no, Bertie; never expect me to do any such thing; I would rather suffer the penalty of my own faults fifty times over! I wish to heaven I were a child again," he added with almost comic ruefulness, "and had mamma to come to me every night, as she used to do, before I went to sleep. It was so easy then to tell her all I had done wrong in the course of the day, and then one error never grew into so many: but now--it must be out before Sunday, I suppose--I never can talk to my father as I do on that day, unless it is;--but go to bed, dear Herbert; I shall have your pale cheeks upon my conscience to-morrow, too!" CHAPTER VII. MR. MORTON'S STORY.--A CONFESSION.--A YOUNG PLEADER.--GENEROSITY NOT ALWAYS JUSTICE.