"Well, sir," answered the scholar, "to be as plain with you as you desire, I have shaken hands with privation, and left it upon the road, to form the acquaintance of those who may follow me; or, to be more plain with you, I found that literature was a good staff but a bad crutch; and, as I began to gather my feet, I used it accordingly. In a word, as my name became known amongst men, my labours became more and more profitable; and, three years ago, thinking that I had obtained the means of doing so, I made an attempt to resume my profession as a surgeon. For many months, it was but an attempt, and a hopeless one, too; but gradually practice dawned or crept upon me. I am now employed as well as other members of my profession are; and, with the assistance of my literary labours, I look back upon the penury with which I struggled, and wish it to remain where I left it. But, though I have known something of the moonshine of fame as it has scattered its rays upon my head, and felt also the influence of the warmer beams of profit as I began to bask in the sun of popularity, yet there was, and there is, one dark and unsunned spot in my heart--and that is, the remembrance of my Bertha. Still does imagination conjure up her sudden glance, her one wild cry and look of agony, as I came forward to receive the plaudits of the multitude, when, as the bay-leaves were circling my brow, the prickly brier was rudely drawn across my bosom." "Well, doctor," said Peter, "ye have not just spoken so plain as I could have wished; but I dare to say that I comprehend ye. When ye eat a meal now, ye ken where the next is to come from; and if Miss Bertha still thinks o' ye, and were to gie you her hand, there would be no likelihood o' her being brought in contact with the privations with which ye have manfully struggled, and which, I am happy to hear (and, I may say, more happy to perceive--for a person's own eyes are excellent witnesses), ye have overcome. Now, sir, hearken to me, for I have something to tell ye. I had always a sort of liking for ye, doctor; and though I did see ye foolish and stupid in many things, yet I was sorry for ye, and I said I believed that ye was a lad o' real genius, and of a right heart at the bottom. More than that, I said, that, if ye minded your hand, ye would be heard tell of in the world--and I have not been mistaken, for, even down in Cumberland, we have seen your name in the papers; and a hundred times have I said to my neighbours--'I always told ye that lad would rise to something.' But now, sir--now to the main subject, the one in which you will feel the greatest interest. Ye say that ye again and again wrote to Miss Bertha to Cumberland, and never got an answer. I am in no way surprised at that at all; and for this simple reason, that old Colonel Forster left Eskside five years ago, and went to reside near a place they call Elstree, about ten miles from this city. Now, the way in