For a week or more after his arrival home these perplexing reflections simmered incessantly inside Jeremy’s head, till at length, feeling that they were getting too much for him, he determined to consult his sister, which, as she had three times his brains, he would have done well to think of before. Dolly fixed her steady blue eyes upon him and listened to his tale in silence. “And so you see, Doll”—he always called her Doll—he ended up, “I’m in a regular fix. I don’t know what I’m fit for, unless it’s to row a boat, or let myself out to bad shots to kill their game for them. You see I must stick on to Ernest; I don’t feel somehow as though I could get along without him; if it wasn’t for that I’d emigrate. I should be just the chap to cut down big trees in Vancouver’s Island or brand bullocks,”’ he added meditatively. “You are a great goose, Jeremy,” was his sister’s comment. He looked up, not as in any way disputing her statement, but merely for further information. “You are a great goose, I say. What do you suppose that I have been doing all these three years and more that you have been rowing boats and wasting time up at college? _I_ have been thinking, Jeremy.” “Yes, and so have I, but there is no good in thinking.” “No, not if you stop there; but I’ve been acting too. I’ve spoken to Reginald, and made a plan, and he has accepted my plan.” “You always were clever, Doll; you’ve got all the brains and I’ve got all the size;” and he surveyed as much as he could see of himself ruefully. “You don’t ask what I have arranged,” she said, sharply, for in alluding to her want of stature Jeremy had touched a sore point. “I am waiting for you to tell me.” “Well, you are to be articled to Reginald.” “O Lord!” groaned Jeremy, “I don’t like that at all.” “Be quiet till I have told you. You are to be articled to Reginald, and he is to pay you an allowance of a hundred a year while you are articled, so that if you don’t like it you needn’t live here.” “But I don’t like the business, Doll; I hate it; it is a beastly business; it’s a devil’s business.” “I should like to know what right you have to talk like that, Mr. Knowall! Let me tell you that many better men than you are content to earn their living by lawyer’s work. I suppose that a man can be honest as a lawyer as well as in any other trade.” Jeremy shook his head doubtfully. “It’s blood-sucking,” he said energetically. “Then you must suck blood,” she answered, with decision. “Look here, Jeremy, don’t be pig-headed and upset all my plans. If you fall out with Reginald over this, he won’t do anything else for you. He doesn’t like you, you know, and would be only too glad to pick a quarrel with you if he could do it with a clear conscience, and then where would you be, I should like to know?” Jeremy was unable to form an opinion as to where he would be, so she went on: