“Thank you! thank you! Now I shall get on!” he cried, and ran up the hill.

“You seem to understand boys!” said the brother.

“I have always had a sort of ambition to understand ignorance.”

“Understand ignorance?”

“You know what queer shapes the shadows of the plainest things take: I never seem to understand any thing till I understand its shadow.”

The youth glanced keenly at Donal.

“I wish I had had a tutor like you!” he said.

“Why?” asked Donal.

“I should have done better.—Where do you live?”

Donal told him he was lodging with Andrew Comin, the cobbler. A silence followed.