The Highland monthly - National Library of Scotland

—
Willie Gillies. ii
impossible. I have no money—no friends (after a pause),
and my mother's allowance from the Ministers' Widows.
Fund is so small— father was a poor missionary when he
married, and could not take the higher class of payments
that they have scarcely enough to keep them from want,
and I can't help them much until I earn better wages. I
can and will work—that's a consolation."
" My lad "— I spoke as calmly as emotion permitted
" I am grieved that in haste I was a harsh judge of your
motives. To you I dare not give counsel. What am I
but a comparatively useless member of society—one
without a settled purpose or object of exertion ?
I stand rebuked before you who are going out with
faith and hope and lofty principles to the battle of
life, which I evaded by running away. I envy you the
motive of your exertion. Obey your father's words like a
voice from heaven. You have a purgatory of disappointments
and crosses before you— you have already entered
it—but trust in God and persevere, and you will come out
of it like gold thrice t-ied, I will not judge of the profes-
sion you have chosen—or which has been forced upon you
by circumstances. Many in any profession may be good
and honest, and it is the professions of doubtful reputatiort
that have the greatest need of goodness. Feeling towards
you as if you were my son or younger brother, I say that I
would not have counselled you to study law, but as it is, I
can only ask forgiveness and bid you go forth and prosper."
We did not again recur to the subject, but the ice being
once broken, Willie after this conversation talked freely
about his friends at home. By the synthetical process of
reasoning, I made up pictures of his mother, sister, and
brother. The first I thought was a pliable, loving woman,
the second a smart romp, the plague and delight of the
family, and the third a plump fellow, eating, if he could, all
day, and sleeping all night. In the first instance I had soon
ocular proof that my ideal was correct, and I have found
cause since to surmise that I was not far wrong about the
junior members either.