"What we shall have to do as servitors neither I nor Wall can precisely tell," continued Frank, paying no attention to the warning. "Wall says, brushing clothes, and setting tables for meals, and waiting on the other students at dinner, will be amongst the refreshing exercises. However it may be, my mind is made up to do. If they put me to black shoes, I shall only sing over it, and sit down to my studies with a better will when the shoes have come to an end."
William smiled. "Blacking shoes will be no new employment to you, Frank."
"No. And if ever I catch myself coveting the ease and dignity of the lordly hats, I shall just cast my thoughts back again to our early privations; to what my mother struggled through for us; and that will bring me down again. We owe all to her; and I hope she will owe something to us in the shape of comforts before she dies," warmly added Frank, the tears rising to his eyes.
"It is what I have hoped for years," replied William, in a low tone. "It is coming, Frank."
"Well, I think I do now see one step before me. You remember papa's dream, William?"
William simply bowed his head.
"Lately I have not even seen that step. Between ourselves, I was losing some of my hopefulness; and you know that is what I never lost, whatever the rest of you may have done."
"We none of us lost hope, Frank. It was hope that enabled us to bear on. You were over-sanguine."
"It comes to the same thing. The step I see before me now is to go to Oxford as a servitor. To St. John's if I can, for I should like to be with Wall. He is a good, plodding fellow, though I don't know that he is over-burthened with brains."
"Not with the quick brains of Frank Halliburton."