"Yes, William, too tenderly. Their tenderness has enfeebled you, and
that is the reason you know not in what way to begin to dissipate
your doubts, and apply your energies. If they reproach you, that is
because they have some interest in you, and a right in you, which
constitutes their interest. If they treat the stranger civilly, it
is because he is a stranger."

"Ay, sir, but what if they give this stranger authority to question
and to counsel me? Is not this a cruel indignity?"

"Softly, William, softly! There is something at the bottom of
this which I do not see, and which perhaps you do not see. If your
parents employ a stranger to counsel you, it proves that something
in your conduct leads them to think that you need counsel."

"That may be, sir; but why not give it themselves? why employ a
person of whom nobody knows anything?"

"I infer from your tone, my son, rather than your words, that you
have some dislike to this stranger.

"No, sir--"was the beginning of the young man's reply, but he
stopped short with a guilty consciousness. A warm blush overspread
his cheek, and he remained silent. The old man, without seeming to
perceive the momentary interruption, or the confusion which followed
it, proceeded in his commentary.

"There should be nothing, surely, to anger you in good counsel,
spoken even by a stranger, my son; and even where the counsel be
not good, if the motive be so, it requires our gratitude though it