the use of his will--constantly indeed mistaking impulse for will--to
blend the conflicting elements of his nature into one. He was therefore
a man much as the mass of flour and raisins, etc., when first put into
the bag, is a plum-pudding; and had to pass through something analogous
to boiling to give him a chance of becoming worthy of the name he would
have arrogated. But in his own estimate of himself he claimed always the
virtues of whose presence he was conscious in his good moods letting the
bad ones slide, nor taking any account of what was in them. He
substituted forgetfulness for repudiation, a return of good humor for
repentance, and at best a joke for apology.

Mark, a pale, handsome boy of ten, and Josephine, a rosy girl of seven,
sat on the opposite side of the fire, amusing themselves with a puzzle.
The gusts of wind, and the great splashes of rain on the glass, only
made them feel the cosier and more satisfied.

"Beastly weather!" remarked Cornelius, as with an effort half wriggle,
half spring, he raised himself perpendicular, and turned towards the
room rather than the persons in it.

"I'm sorry you don't like it, Cornie," said his elder sister, who sat
beside her mother trimming what promised to be a pretty bonnet. A
concentrated effort to draw her needle through an accumulation of silken
folds seemed to take something off the bloom of the smile with which she
spoke.

"Oh, it's all very well for girls!" returned Cornelius. "You don't do
anything worth doing; and besides you've got so many things you like
doing, and so much time to do them in, that it's all one to you whether
you go out or stay at home. But when a fellow has but a miserable three