"Harry has very little the look of a student."
"Yet he has already learned
"'To scorn delights and live laborious days.'
"But he has measure in everything,—and it is something to say of a boy of his ardent temper. He observes the balance between physical and mental exercise. He follows the counsel Languet gave to Sir Philip Sidney,—to 'take care of his health, and not be like one who, on a long journey, attends to himself, but not to the horse that is to carry him.'"
"Do his parents wish him to follow the law?" my mother asked.
"They wish whatever he does. It seems they hold their boy something sacred, and do not dare to interfere with him. But I wish it. The law is the threshold of public life. I want to see him in his place."
The Doctor sat smiling to himself for a little while, nodded his head once or twice, and then, fixing his clear, cool blue eyes on my face, said, in an emphatic voice,—"That boy will make his mark. Depend upon it, he will make his mark in one way or another!" A shadow fell over the eyes; the voice was lowered:—"I have only one fear for him. It is that he may throw himself away on some fanaticism."
"How long have you known Harry Dudley?" I asked, when the pause had lasted so long that I thought the Doctor would not begin again without being prompted.
"All his life. Our families are connected;—not so nearly by blood; but they have run down side by side for four or five generations. His father and I pass for cousins. We were in college together. He was my Senior, but I was more with him than with any of my own classmates until he was graduated. He married very soon after, and then his house was like a brother's to me. I went abroad after I left college, and was gone three years. When I came back, we took things up just where we left them. Dudley went to Europe himself afterwards with his family, but I was backwards and forwards, so that I have never lost sight of them. I have nobody nearer to me."