"If I don't serve you out for it! You shall never hear the last of it!" shouted Tom. "I'll take to writing, after all I'll put it in the papers. I'll make the name of Briggs the poisoner an abomination in the land." John Briggs turned and fled. "Well!" said Mark, "I must spend my morning at home, I suppose. So I shall just sit and chat with you, Doctor." "And I shall go and play with Molly," said Tom, and walked off to Armsworth's garden. "I don't care for myself so much," said Mark; "but I'm sorry the boy's lost his last day's shooting." "Oh, you will be well enough by noon, and can go then; and as for the boy, it is just as well for him not to grow too fond of sports in which he can never indulge." "Never indulge? Why not? He vows he'll go to the Rocky Mountains, and shoot a grizzly bear; and he'll do it." "He has a great deal to do before that, poor fellow; and a great deal to learn." "And he'll learn it. You're always down-hearted about the boy, Doctor." "I can't help feeling the parting with him: and for Paris, too:--such a seat of temptation. But it is his own choice; and, after all, he must see temptation, wherever he goes." "Bless the man! if a boy means to go to the bad, he'll go just as easily in Whitbury as in Paris. Give the lad his head, and never fear; he'll fall on his legs like a cat, I'll warrant him, whatever happens. He's as steady as old Time, I tell you; there's a grey head on green shoulders there." "Steady?" said the Doctor, with a smile and a shrug. "Steady, I tell you at heart; as prudent as you or I; and never lost you a farthing, that you know. Hang good boys! give me one who knows how to be naughty in the right place; I wouldn't give sixpence for a good boy; I never was one myself, and have no faith in them. Give me the lad who has more steam up than he knows what to do with, and must needs blow off a little in larks. When once he settles down on the rail, it'll send him along as steady as a luggage train. Did you never hear a locomotive puffing and roaring before it gets under way? well, that's what your boy is doing. Look at him now, with my poor little Molly." Tom was cantering about the garden with a little weakly child of eight in his arms. The little thing was looking up in his face with delight, screaming at his jokes. "You are right, Mark: the boy's heart cannot be in the wrong place while he is so fond of little children." "Poor Molly! How she'll miss him! Do you think she'll ever walk, Doctor?" "I do indeed." "Hum! ah! well! if she grows up, Doctor, and don't go to join her poor dear mother up there, I don't know that I'd wish her a better husband than your boy." "It would be a poor enough match for her."