Selfishness can wear many a mask. Sometimes it can array itself in features almost noble, more often its traits are of the very meanest. Frank's egotism was of the former kind. He wanted to attain distinction by an honorable path, he would not have stooped to any other. He was ready to do or dare all for greatness. No peril could deter, no danger could daunt him; but yet was he totally deficient in that greatest element of success, that patient discipline of the mind which, made up of humility and confidence, can wait and bide its time, earning the prizes of life before it claim them. His pride of family, however, was his greatest blemish, since it suggested a false notion of distinction, a pretension so groundless that, like a forged banknote, it was sure to involve even the bearer in disgrace. So full was he of himself and his own future, that he took but little note of the way as he went. Avoiding, from a sense of pride, to associate with the “Travelling Youths,” as they are called, he walked along from early morning to late evening, alone and companionless. It was mostly a dreary and uninteresting road, either leading through dark and gloomy pine forests or over great plains of swampy surface, where the stubble of the tall maize, or the stunted vines, were the only traces of vegetation. As he drew near the Tyrol, however, the great mountains came in sight, while the continual ascent told that he was gradually reaching the land of glaciers and snow-peaks. Day by day he found the road less and less frequented: these lonely districts were little resorted to by the wandering apprentices, so that frequently Frank did not meet a single traveller from day-dawn till night. Perhaps he felt little regret at this, leaving him, as it did, more time for those daydreams in which he loved to revel. Now and then some giant mountain glittering in the sun, or some dark gorge thousands of feet below him, would chase away his revery, and leave him for a time in a half-bewildered and wondering astonishment; but his thoughts soon resumed their old track, and he would plod along, staff in hand, as before. Walking from before daybreak to a late hour of the evening, Frank frequently accomplished in his day's journey as many miles as the traveller who, by post, only spent the few hours of mid-day on the road; in fact, he might have thus measured his speed, had he been less wrapped up in his own fancies, since, for several days, a caleche, drawn by three post-horses, had regularly passed him on the road, and always about the same hour.