But what was to be done? To return to the counting-house, after his resolute declaration; to embark again in that indoor and tame drudgery which he ever hated, and which was rendered as vile as slavery, by the disclosures which had taken place, could not be. He would be baser than were he to sell himself to his uncle’s purposes, could he yield to such a suggestion. To leave Glasgow was his only alternative; but how? and where to go? and where to obtain the means? were stinging questions that he could not answer; and then what was he to gain? To marry Robina was to sacrifice Ellen Frazer; to quit the country entailed the same consequence. Besides all that, in so doing he would add to the sorrows and the disappointments of his gentle-hearted and affectionate mother, who had built renewed hopes on his success under the auspices of his uncle, and who looked eagerly forward to the time when he should be so established in business as to bring his sister before the world in circumstances befitting his father’s child; for the hereditary pride of family was mingled with his sensibility; and even the beautiful and sprightly Ellen Frazer herself, perhaps, owed something of her superiority over Robina to the Highland pedigrees and heroic traditions which Mrs. Eadie delighted to relate of her ancestors. While tossing on these troubled and conflicting tides of the mind, he happened to recollect, that a merchant, a schoolfellow of his father, and who, when he occasionally met him, always inquired, with more than common interest, for his mother and sister, had at that time a vessel bound for New York, where he intended to establish a store, and was in want of a clerk; and it occurred to him, that, perhaps, through that means, he might accomplish his wishes. This notion was as oil to his agitation, and hope restored soon brought sleep and soothing dreams to his pillow; but his slumbers were not of long duration, for before sunrise he awoke; and, in order to avoid the garrulous remonstrances of the Leddy, he rose and went to Camrachle for the purpose, as he persuaded himself, to consult his mother; but, for all that we have been able to understand, it was in reality only to communicate his determination. But these sort of self-delusions are very common to youths under age.