that we did not use what influence we had aright, and that we allowed the most golden opportunities to slip away unimproved. They never return. So the youth has found who has wasted his early years in vanity, negligence, and indecision. He had his day for work, but he spent it in idleness; he had his opportunities for spiritual advancement, but he neglected them, and the evil day came and found him with a hardened heart, dead to the most precious influences and to the most thrilling appeals. Unavailing regrets form the bitter portion of those who spend the day in falselycalled pleasure and amusement, which was given unto them for labour and for conflict. We have sometimes watched the countenance of a sick man while the doctor has been telling him that his days and hours are numbered. Ah! how important time seems then! What a value is attached to every hour, to every minute! Thus sacred should time be when youth and health are possessed. It behoves us all to live under the influence of that grand testing day when the thoughts of all hearts shall be revealed, and the lives and actions of all stand out in their true light. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. Work while it is day; for the night cometh when no man can work."

"TO-MORROW;"

OR, THE EVILS OF PROCRASTINATION.

CHAPTER II.

I AWOKE very early the next morning after my conversation with my father, thinking of the joyful tidings I had for Fred; and as soon as breakfast was over, away I sped to impart them.

"Fred!" I exclaimed, meeting him in the lane before his house, and speaking rapidly, that I might at once clear away the look of anxiety that had settled on his face

since the family calamity, "I've such news for you. I only came home yesterday, and you see I've come off early this morning to tell you them. You are to go with me to Ghent; my father says so, and he'll pay for you. You're to be a soldier like me, Pylades, and we'll fight side by side, old boy, won't we? and help to hurl down the Corsican; hurrah!"

I took off my cap, and waved it as I gave the cheer. I had worked myself up to this pitch of enthusiasm, hoping to elate Fred equally, that he might forget the high stool in the bank, and the £70 a-year, on which he had so set his heart. To my astonishment, however, when my enthusiasm had effervesced, he stood by my side calm as usual, but a little paler, and he smiled sadly, as, with a slow shake of the head, he said, "I, a soldier? Impossible, Fred! I am not strong enough; I could not leave my mother; I must be the head of my family now. What of the clerkship, Ned?"

Oh! what cowards we may really be, even when others think us the bravest. How did I reply, think you? Not as openly as I ought to have done, I can well remember; I was not courageous enough for that, with all my pluck about the Corsican tyrant. Again I tried to induce Fred to go with me to Ghent, but in vain; and as my entreaties became more earnest, he only repeated more decidedly and calmly, "I must be the head of my family now; I will not forsake my mother. Oh, Ned! if I could have been your father's clerk, how happy that would have made me! You say he thought me competent; why did he not take me, then? The new clerk was only chosen yesterday morning, I know. Ned," he said very earnestly, fixing his eyes upon me, while mine fell in confusion, "I know you put off till to-morrow before you applied for me. Confess it now! I'll not blame you; I'll only tell you, in return, how you can compensate for this breach of your first promise to your faithful Pylades."

Fred and I walked on fast together as I confessed it all. He was bitterly disappointed, indeed, yet so good and forgiving, that I felt more wretched than I can describe as I heard the gentle tones of his reproach; and I almost vowed that never again should my wretched habit so injure another.

"And, now, what can I do for you, Fred ?" I asked.

you

"Well," he replied, "for me you can do nothing. I shall get employment in a mill, as I said. But you may help my brother, Ned, if you will; and in that way, indeed, will do a great kindness to me. Charles is a fine boy; he's as brave as you, Ned, and wishes, with all his heart, he was going to be a soldier, as you are. Has Mr. Hammond specially selected me as the object of his bounty? Tell him how I thank him for his goodness, but that it is impossible I can avail myself of it. Plead for Charlie, Ned. Perhaps Mr. Hammond will consent to do for him what he has so generously offered for me."

I left Fred as soon as I had heard him out, and satisfied myself that his determinations were unalterable, and marched home with a quick, light step. When next I saw my father, I told him what Fred had said, and I entreated that, for his sake, the favour he could not accept might be extended to his brother Charles. A few minutes later, I had the joy of flying almost breathless to Fred again,—no delay now, while the smart of my late fault was rankling in my memory, of telling him that my father had agreed, and that Charles must be ready in another week to accompany me to Ghent.

I need not tell you much of my schooldays there. I know I was as wild and thoughtless a fellow as ever; nay, I was worse; for I found no Pylades at Ghent to warn me from evil examples, and to induce me to admire and follow the good. Besides, when we are conscious of a defect in our character, and yet make no firm, persevering efforts to remedy it, it is not to be checked by one discovery of its evil effects, especially if those effects are not personally injurious to ourselves. Children, believe me, selfishness is at the root of what you call your "little bad habits." Try, then, to check them in time, lest you should be taught, as, alas! I have been, that nothing will cure you of them but the bitter and irreparable experience of their effects on yourselves.

I did not forget Fred at Ghent; and for a long time—as long as the remembrance of the injury I had done him dwelt in my mind I faithfully kept my promise of writing to him. But soon this regularity became irksome. I was forming new acquaintances amongst my schoolfellows; I was full of the excitement of my new life and studies, and the past gradually lost its hold upon me. That writing regularly to Fred had been a reminder, an incentive to punctuality in

other matters: when that was given up, I fell back into my procrastinating ways. Many were the lectures, both public and private, the tutors read me for the carelessness with which my tasks were done. The truth was, I delayed doing them till the last minute, that I might get another hour's pleasure in the town, or an extra game at quoits or football, and then scribbled them off, and sent them in, wet and blotted, without one mark of thought or painstaking about them.

My father complained so often and so vainly of the irregularity with which I wrote to him, that at last he stopped my pocket-money as a punishment. You may be sure this soon wrought an amendment in his unworthy son. Selfishness again, my young friends, was at the root even of my improvement.

Once only did my habit of procrastination lead to propitious results for another, though, at the same time, to disappointment and vexation to myself. There was residing in Ghent an old foreign nobleman, who was immensely rich. He had lost his only son in the war against Napoleon, and ever since then had taken a deep interest in our school, where this son had been educated. He would come on a summer's evening and watch us at our sports in the playground, or at our sham fights and mimic fortifications, and cry bravo! to the swiftest runner or the most dexterous swordsman, or handsomely reward the nimble fellow who first scaled his enemies' parapet. Many a tip did I receive from him for feats of this kind, for I was a soldierly boy, and some day or other, said the old baron, I should be a general, and no mistake. It was strange the interest the old man took in me. They say that he singled me out specially on account of a resemblance he fancied I bore to his dead son; but, be this as it may, he loaded me with favours.

About a month before I left Ghent, the baron came up to the school one day, and, selecting about a dozen of the eldest of us, of whom I was first chosen, he told us that it was his intention to give a handsome reward to that one of us who should write him the best essay on a subject which he then proposed a difficult one, relating to military tactics. This essay was to be in readiness for him at the expiration of a fortnight.

"I shall call for your papers, boys," he said, "one day at

the close of next week. Be ready with them. The prize will be worth your winning."

We were all full of excitement when the baron left us. I remember I was so eager to win the promised reward, that I sat down to my desk then and there, and, in my rapid, discriminating way, for I had no mean talents, I disposed of full half the subject that very day. This stretch of thought, however, made my head ache so violently that at length I threw up my task, and sought relief in the playground; nor did I soon feel disposed again to continue the laborious undertaking. Charles Daltry was one of the baron's chosen twelve. He was not a clever boy, but he was plodding and systematic. Every evening, after the baron's announcement, did Charles sit down to his desk, rest his forehead on his hand, and, abstracting himself from the noise around him, strive with all his might to pen such an essay as might prove him worthy of the prize. I felt sure, though, that he would not get it. I knew that with a few more hours' thought I could beat his essay hollow; so leaving him, with something like a feeling of contempt, to the agonies of composition, I meantime fished in the river, sported in the playground, or strolled in the town, and not another word did I add to my essay; for, was there not plenty of time? a whole week yet! To-day it was too hot to think and to write, to-morrow it might rain, and then I would finish the thing out of hand.

But neither did the rain come, nor the to-morrow on which I had relied so surely. So time wore on, till it was Thursday of the week in which the essays were to be given in. I was in the playground, as usual at eventide, foremost in the cricket match, bowler for my side. It was near sunset, and still the wager was not won; the game was yet at its height. In a moment of pause, while I stood wiping my brow which was streaming with the effects of my exertions, a gentle hand touched my shoulder. I looked round. It was Charles Daltry.

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Ned," said he rather timidly, for I was his senior, and not over-patient of interference, even from my equals; "Ned, have you finished your essay? I've done mine."

"Have you?" I returned coldly. "Thank you for the information, but not for your impertinent inquiries, sirrah! Leave me, if you please, to take care of my own affairs." But he gently interposed once more.