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364 he does it before he dies. Surely, when you were a child at school, you felt convinced that there was something in your fate distinct from that of the other boys—whom the master might call quite as clever—felt that faith in yourself which made you sure that you would be one day what you are."

"Well, I suppose so; but vague aspirations and self-conceits must be bound together by some practical necessity—perhaps a very homely and a very vulgar one—or they scatter and evaporate. One would think that rich people in high life ought to do more than poor folks in humble life. More pains are taken with their education; they have more leisure for following the bent of their genius; yet it is the poor folks, often half self-educated, and with pinched bellies, that do three-fourths of the world's grand labor. Poverty is the keenest stimulant, and poverty made me not say, 'I will do,' but ' I must.'"

"You knew real poverty in childhood, Frank?"

"Real poverty, covered over with sham affluence. My father was Genteel Poverty, and my mother was Poor Gentility. The sham affluence went when my father died. The real poverty then came out in all its ugliness. I was taken from a genteel school, at which, long afterward, I genteelly paid the bills; and I had to support my mother somehow or other—somehow or other I succeeded. Alas, I fear not genteelly! But before I lost her, which I did in a few years, she had some comforts which were not appearances; and she kindly allowed, dear soul, that gentility and shams do not go well together. Oh! beware of debt, Lionello mio; and never call that economy meanness which is but the safeguard from mean degradation."

"I understand you at last, Vance; shake hands; I know why you are saving."

"Habit now," answered Vance, repressing praise of himself, as usual. " But I remember so well when twopence was a sum to be respected, that to this day I would rather put it by than spend it. All our ideas, like orange-plants, spread out in proportion to the size of the box which imprisons the roots. Then I had a sister." Vance paused a moment as if in pain, but went on with seeming carelessness, leaning over the window-sill, and turning his face from his friend. " I had a sister older than myself, handsome, gentle. I was so proud of her! Foolish girl! my love was not enough for her. Foolish girl! she could not wait to see what I might live to do for her. She married— oh! so genteelly!—a young man, very well born, who had wooed her before my father died. He had the villany to remain constant when she had not a farthing, and he was dependent on