Julian Home

ice of popular favour always on his side. While ambition made him work tolerably hard, as far as he could do so without attracting observation, the line he took was to disparage industry, and ally himself with the merely cricketing set, with some of whom he might be seen strolling arm-in-arm, in loud conversation, at every possible opportunity. Julian, on the other hand, though a fair cricketer, soon grew weary of the "shop" about that game, which for three months formed the main staple of conversation among the boys; and while his countenance was too expressive to conceal this fact, he in his turn found himself unable to enlist more than a few in any interest for those intellectual pursuits which were the chief joy of his own life.

"Home, I've been watching you for the last half-hour," said Bruce, one day at dinner, "and you haven't opened your lips."

"I've had nothing to say."

"Why not?"

"Because, since we came in, not one word has been said about any human subject but cricket, c