sinning; but had he steeped his hands in gore, he would still not

deserve to be thus dragged at the chariot-wheels of a young man, to sit

a captive in the halls of his own leather business, to be entertained

with mortifying comments on his whole career--to have his costume

examined, his collar pulled up, the presence of his mittens verified,

and to be taken out and brought home in custody, like an infant with

a nurse. At the thought of it his soul would swell with venom, and he

would make haste to hang up his hat and coat and the detested mittens,

and slink upstairs to Julia and his notebooks. The drawing-room at least

was sacred from Morris; it belonged to the old man and the young girl;

it was there that she made her dresses; it was there that he inked

his spectacles over the registration of disconnected facts and the

calculation of insignificant statistics.

Here he would sometimes lament his connection with the tontine. 'If it

were not for that,' he cried one afternoon, 'he would not care to keep

me. I might be a free man, Julia. And I could so easily support myself

by giving lectures.'

'To be sure you could,' said she; 'and I think it one of the meanest

things he ever did to deprive you of that amusement. There were those

nice people at the Isle of Cats (wasn't it?) who wrote and asked you so

very kindly to give them an address. I did think he might have let you

go to the Isle of Cats.'

'He is a man of no intelligence,' cried Joseph. 'He lives here literally

surrounded by the absorbing spectacle of life, and for all the good

it does him, he might just as well be in his coffin. Think of his

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