CHAPTER VII.

OF THE GOOD ADVICE I RECEIVED FROM MY TUTOR, AND WHAT I THOUGHT OF HIM FOR IT.

Heaven bless thee from a tutor, and discipline come not near thee.-SHAKSPEARE, Troil. and Cress.

“BEAR what? and what would you do?” said Mr. Fothergill, who had come close behind me, and heard my exclamation, without my perceiving him. "What is it that you are so resolved not to bear?”

Now, my good tutor, in the very little period (but three days) of our acquaintance, had already won much of my confidence. Indeed, I was always disposed, with the freshness of youth which is so delightful, rather to give than to withhold that confidence where it appeared to be deserved, so that I was upon the point of telling him my grievance. But he anticipated me.

“I can see,” said he, “that for the last two days you have been much ruffled. You have suddenly lost that open, joyous alacrity which I noted on your entry on this new scene, and which I attributed mainly to your hopes of renewing your familiar intercourse with the dearest friend you have in the world.'" Here he smiled, as I thought, sarcastically, adding, "Was I right?”

"You certainly were,” replied I, colouring and growing hot.

"And am I right again, in thinking that in this dearest friend you may not have met with all that reciprocity of friendship which you expected ?"

"I certainly find this place," answered I, with perhaps some equivocation, " different from Yorkshire." "And Christ Church, I suppose, very different from Sedbergh ?"

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Perhaps so; but I know nothing about Christ Church."

Seeing that I said this with humour-" Come," added he, "not only as a tutor and a kinsman, but as one who has taken a liking to you, and would guide you in a strange land if he could, let me task your feelings a little; and if I seem to probe them deeply, attribute it to what it is-interest about your mother's son, and one who has enjoyed good report from the greatest of Yorkshire authorities:-for, I dare say, old Crackenthorpe would not yield to any doctor of us all, in his supposed knowledge of the world, as well as of Homer."

At this he took my arm, proposing a turn in Maudlin walks, "his custom always in the afternoon," and spoke so good humouredly, that I forgot his inuendos, and (half disposed to it before) he won me over to open all my mortification to him. "It seemed," I said, "the bitterest disappointment I had ever yet experienced.”

"No doubt of it," observed Fothergill; "but you will be lucky, my young friend, if you meet not severer rubs than these, both now, in college, and still more hereafter in the world."

"Is this my prospect ?" asked I. forego the greatest and almost only had—friendship?”

"And am I to

delight I ever

How much of this language was owing to the recollection of Bertha, how much to her brother, I will not pretend to say, but Mr. Fothergill, seeing my real anxiety, replied with kindness, yet with much decision of tone, "I honour you for your sincerity, and would rather regulate than destroy your sensibility, which, without such regulation, may do you a great deal more harm than good. In particular, I pity the disappointment you seem to be laying in store for yourself, in what you expect from this early friendship of yours with a man so much above you."

"Above me! ” cried I.

"Why at Sedbergh we were inseparable; and he always held, that rank and fortune made no difference in friendship.”

“'Twere a consummation devoutly to be wished," replied Fothergill, and walked on, as if he had no more to say.

After a turn or two, however, he stopped, and said, “Let us examine this matter a little. Here, you, with your stuff gown, and paltry exhibition of fifty pounds a year, at a plebeian college too, think you are to be on a level with a young heir, clothed with purple and fine linen, the companion of gold tufts, and who spends his five hundred in the temple of fashion! My good cousin," he added, seeing I coloured, "though I allow much for the blood of the Cliffords, this must be whipt out of you, or you will be miserable, both here and in the world."

"Yet I have heard Hastings himself say," replied I, not over pleased, "that friendship, like Cæsar's arms, will throw down all distinctions,

'Who e'er is brave and virtuous is a Roman.'"

"And you believed him?"

"I did."

"Well, perhaps he believed so himself in the solitudes of Sedbergh, where there was no distinction to throw down; here we order things differently."

"But is not nature, nature," asked I, "and every where the same ?”

"Undoubtedly; and it is because the change you complain of is mere nature, only finding itself in another situation, that your friend thus slights you."

"I would not think as you do for all the world," said I, with decision.

"Many have said the same," answered he drily, on this very spot too, and yet have come round to my opinion."

"But I know not that he has slighted me, after all," said I, gathering courage, rather indignant at my tutor's suspicion.

"Bravo!" replied he; "keep up your gallant spirit. Go back to Christ Church; assert your equality with Foljambe Park, and see what will come of it."

It is astonishing how these words, "equality with Foljambe Park," unnerved me.

The inequality between me and that dear place, and the still dearer person who formed its chief or only value, had been too much the object of my secret lamentation not to make the speech sink deep into my feelings, and I gave a long-drawn sigh, which surprized my good tutor, fresh as he thought me.

“Come,” said he, "this heart-burning is rather too much. I allow a good deal for a sudden disappointment to a warm young mind; but as you are to live in the world, I would teach you the world, and the first lesson I would give is, the impolicy, not to call it de

gradation, to the inferior, that attends unequal friendships."

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Impolicy!" cried I; "degradation to love Hastings, or to have been won by his love!"

"Mistake me not," said my mentor; ❝ it cannot degrade you to love Hastings, but it may to court his love, particularly if it is on the wane, or cannot bear the test of being transplanted from a wholesome natural soil to a hot-bed like this. You say yourself, that Eton, you feared, caused some alteration, and, be assured, Oxford will not mend the matter. Whatever may be the other advantages of Alma Mater, this one is great and certain, that she is an epitome of that world to which she is the first real entrance. You there first see life as it will be, and characters as they are, and here you will be really initiated in the knowledge of that demarcation which separates society into its different ranks."

"I hate all demarcations," exclaimed I, almost angrily," that can separate kindred minds. At school we always thought alike. He loved nobody so well, indeed nobody else, and said we should go through the world together."

Fothergill gave his accustomed smile, though he allowed that perhaps Hastings might have thought himself sincere when he said this.

"Perhaps!” cried I," thought himself! O, how little do you know him!"

"We shall see," said my mentor. He then paused, as if I had made him doubt; but resuming-" I love your confiding disposition," said he, " and may it not be disappointed. Yet the coldness shewn already, shews also whereabouts Hastings considers you. He has already caught the esprit de corps of his proud