at her disposal; and here, within sight and
hearing of the guns of Peschiera, my friend the
major and I also fixed our head-quarters, to be
ready for any chance that might offer.

ROUGHING IT.

MR. MARBELL had a theory: a theory that,
by night and by day, he propounded to his
friends, and to which, again and again, he endea-
voured to convert Mrs. Marbell. But the good
woman was not to be convinced. Her nature
warred against Mr. Marbell's logic; her tender-
ness replied to his first proposition; her motherly
instincts rebutted his second proposition; her
unfeigned indignation put down his third pro-
position. Mr. Marbell was a cold man; Mr.
Marbell was a cold father; Mr. Marbell was a
brute—more, Mr. Marbell preached what he
never practised, what he would never have the
courage to try in his own person. Mr. Marbell
was as fond as anybody of his warm slippers by
the fireside, his port feathered with beeswing,
his hot shaving water, and his eider-down quilt.

Then why should dear little Augustus rough
it? Mrs. Marbell wanted to know this—as,
indeed, according to her husband, Mrs. Marbell
wanted to know many things. It was the belief
of Mr. Marbell that to argue with a woman was
to exhibit weakness almost unpardonable; this,
when Mr. Marbell found himself in that position
which is popularly described as being in a corner.

Mr. Marbell being, however, the better-half,
could extricate himself from his corner by the use
of his natural authority. If he could not subdue
and conquer Mrs. Marbell's reason, he could com-
mand her obedience. Augustus should rough it.

The coarsest porridge was provided for Master
Augustus; the hardest bed; a nursery without
a fire. Augustus must keep himself warm by
exercise; exercise would make him hardy. The
mother would carefully cover him with warm
clothing, wind a woollen comforter about his
throat, enfold his mottled legs with gaiters, pro-
tect his little dimpled hands with gloves; but the
father would indignantly remove these effemi-
nate guardians against the cold, and send the
boy forth to the east wind, almost naked. Cry-
ing was put down by solitary confinement; a
whimper produced a premature despatch to bed.
No sweetmeats; no fruit; no happy admissions
to dessert; no visits to the pantomime; no nurs-
ing upon the parental knee. Winter and sum-
mer, in sickness or in health, cold water baths
without mercy. Augustus is to be brought up to
fight the world manfully. His flesh is to be hard
as any mariner's; he is to breast the storm with
naked bosom; to be content with the coarsest
fare, and to flourish upon it. Here are a few of
the regulations which are to govern the physical
growth of Augustus, the Camberwell Spartan.

But his mind is to be under iron rule also.
His nature is to be as hard as his flesh. With
tearful eyes the mother looks up into Gussy's
face, and pouts her warm mouth to meet his.
She would throw her arms about his neck, nestle
his little head upon her shoulder, examine fondly,
finger by finger, his infant hands—hands that,
according to Mr. Marbell, are to forge thunder-
bolts, and, easily as a pattern duke handles the
ribbons, to guide the destinies. And the logic
that to Mrs. Marbell lay in all this wealth of
love, she would have extended to her child, to
soften the adamantine laws of her fierce lord—
had she lived. The darkest day in Gussy's life
was that on which his mother's feeble hands
held his young head for the last time, and drew
his fresh mouth to her own poor, bloodless lips.
The boy was left alone in the world, to bear all
the rigour of a father with a theory.

Most veracious is the history of young Gussy.
We saw the miserable little Spartan day by day,
roughing it. On bleak November mornings,
when the leaden clouds swept past close to the
earth, and an icy rain drove almost horizontally
down our road; on days of broiling heat, when
the milk which the milkman dropped upon the
pavement hissed, and went angrily away in
vapour; on frosty days, when the tread of trip-
ping girls upon the ice-bound earth rang mu-
sically; on sloppy days of dreary thaw, when
the snow had fallen to the thickness of ice-cream,
and served up pieds glacés to all who ventured
upon it. Marbell had become ferocious in his
theory. There was no Mrs. Marbell now to
pester him with tender counsel, nor to put a
comforter about Gussy's throat. Gussy was now
bound over to him hand and foot—most fortu-
nately for the boy. There were no foxes in the
neighbourhood of Camberwell, or one had been
stuffed under the shirt of Gussy, that his parent
might see whether the boy could let the animal
take just one bite at his stomach without wincing.

"It is a hard world," said Mr. Marbell, over
his port, speaking with a friend, "and men
should harden their children to meet it, as we
harden steel, that, with a spring, it may bear
any weight. Now, I have resolved to make my
boy razor-steel at the very least. He shall be
able to live where others would die—to flourish
where others would fail. His constitution shall
be equal to the mountain-top or the valley—to
an Arctic expedition, or a secretaryship under
Dr. Livingstone."

"The brute!" said (sotto voce) Rachel, the
maid, who had just appeared, bearing to Mr.
Marbell and his guest a plate of olives.

"The boy is not a clever boy; he is even
dull. The better reason, I say, for hardening
him. For with moderate abilities only to recom-
mend him to the world, how can he make his
standing good if he be not prepared to support
incessant buffeting. His wants must be so
humble that he may be able to save—ay, part of
a crust. A mountain plant, sir, he must nourish
upon the dry rock. I, sir (and Mr. Marbell
glanced through his glass at the dancing bees-
wing), am the architect of my own fortune.
I once swept the office of which I am now the
principal. I met men on their own ground. I
set my shoulder firmly to my work, and I found
that I had need of all my strength to conquer.
My boy shall have a tougher skin, a firmer
muscle than I had. He shall learn to rough it."