It is not the circumstances in which the incidents of life take place, but the feeling they excite, that makes one occurrence more than another, important. The crisis of fortune at which I had now arrived was destined to influence all my subsequent days, but there appeared no augury in the time to make me sensible that it was fraught with such consequences.

The distance from Weebeild to the house of Mrs. Busby in the village, was little more than a mile. It was a road I had often travelled—I will not say with a lighter heart, for the schoolboy-cares of lessons to learn, and the anxieties attendant on fishing or nesting excursions, were not less heavy than the burthen which then weighed upon my spirits.

During the major part of the walk I was irritated and resentful. I thought, however, less of the impending ruin than of the manner in which Mr. Macindoe had discussed it; and grieved an immeasurably deal more at the nature of the advice he gave me how to meet my difficulties, than with apprehension of the desolation I must soon encounter; saying, as I thoughtfully plodded along, “Can such be the way, indeed, of the world?”

When the flutter had subsided into a gentler vexation, and my thoughts grew calmer, perhaps from some unconscious sympathy with the peacefulness of the day and the repose of the landscape around, I began to reflect more in detail on my conversation with Mr. Macindoe.