nothing but doing wrong," replied my mother, "and you had best leave the
dispensation of wealth or poverty to the One whose right it is, for, be
assured, He knows best what is for our good; I had much rather see you
grow up a good man than a rich one. If your life is spared, and you
prove to be a useful and honorable man, people will never inquire
whether your boyhood was passed amid wealth or poverty." I was then in
too discontented a mood to profit by my mother's words, but many times
in after years were they recalled forcibly to my mind. Time passed on
till the last night arrived, which I was to spend at home for an
indefinite period. Charley Gray obtained permission to spend this last
night with me, and we lay awake for hours talking over our numerous
plans for the future in true school-boy fashion. Many an air-castle did
we rear that night which the lapse of years have laid in the dust. In
our boyish plans of future greatness, I was not exactly sure what I was
to be, only I was to be a wonderfully great man of some kind, while
Charley was, of course, to become a very eminent physician, such as
should not be found upon any past record; and we talked, too, of the
wonder we should excite among our old friends when we might chance to
revisit the scenes of our early home. We even spoke of driving past the
farm of Mr. Judson in a fine carriage drawn by a pair of beautiful bay
horses; but with all our lively talk poor Charley was sadly out of
spirits. His old bosom foe was at work; he feared that among new
companions I might meet with some one who would supplant him in my
affections. To one of my nature, this jealous exclusive disposition was
something incomprehensible; later in life I learned to pity him for a
defect of character, which in his case was hereditary, and which he
could no more help than the drawing of his life-breath. I was to leave
Elmwood by the early morning train so we were up betimes; but, early as
it was, we found my mother already up and breakfast awaiting us. The
railway station was a little beyond the village, and more than a mile