“It almost consoles me for separation when I think that I have transferred to him the blessings of that presence that made my own sunshine. Mind that you send me a diary of your life. I want your whole day; I want to see how existence is filled, so that whenever my mind flies back to you I may say, 'She is in her garden,--she is working,--she is at her music,--she is reading to him.' “It was a mistake to send me here, Lucy. There are men in scores who would rejoice in the opportunities of such a place, and see in it the road to rapid fortune. I only look at one feature of it,--the banishment. Not that by nature I am discontented,--I hope and believe this is not so,--but I feel that there are many things in life far worse than poverty. I have not the same dread of narrow means most men have. I do not feel depressed in spirit when I lie beneath a very humble roof, and sit down to a coarse meal; nor has splendor the power to exhilarate or elevate me. I am essentially humble, and I need nothing that is not generally within the reach of the humble; and I vow to you in all truth, I 'd rather be your grandfather's gardener than be the governor of this great colony. There 's an ignoble confession, but keep it for yourself. “I have written a long letter to Tom by this post, and addressed it to Mr. Dempster, who will forward it if he should have left before this. It distresses me greatly when I think that I have not been able to give him any definite career in life before we parted. Mere aptitude has no value with the world. You may be willing and ready to do fifty things, but some fourth-rate fellow who _knows_ how to do one will beat you. The marketable quality in life is skill; the thing least in request is genius. Tom has this harsh lesson yet to learn, but learn it he must, for the world is a schoolmaster that will stand no skulking, and however little to our taste be its tasks, we must come up when called on, and go on with our lesson as well as we may. “In many respects Sir Brook Fossbrooke was an unfortunate companion for him to have chanced upon. A man of considerable resources, who has employed them all unprofitably, is a bad pilot. The very waywardness of such a nature was exactly the quality to be avoided in Tom's case; but what was to be done? Poverty can no more select its company than its climate; and it would have been worse than ungracious to have rejected a friendship so generously and freely offered. “I am curious--I am more than curious, I am anxious--to know if Tom should ever have met my father. They are so intensely alike in many things that I fear me their meeting could not lead to-good. I know well that Tom resents, and would like to show that he resents, what he deems the harsh treatment evinced towards me, and I dread anything like interchange of words between them. My whole hope is that you would prevent such a mischance, or, if it did occur, would take measures to obviate its dangers.