CUR ME EXANIMAS QUERELIS TUIS? In plain English, Why do you deafen me with yourcroaking? The disconsolate tone in which you bade me farewell at Noble House, [The first stage onthe road from Edinburgh to Dumfries via Moffat.] and mounted your miserable hack to return toyour law drudgery, still sounds in my ears. It seemed to say, 'Happy dog! you can ramble at pleasureover hill and dale, pursue every object of curiosity that presents itself, and relinquish the chase whenit loses interest; while I, your senior and your better, must, in this brilliant season, return to mynarrow chamber and my musty books.'Such was the import of the reflections with which you saddened our parting bottle of claret, andthus I must needs interpret the terms of your melancholy adieu.And why should this be so, Alan? Why the deuce should you not be sitting precisely opposite tome at this moment, in the same comfortable George Inn; thy heels on the fender, and thy juridicalbrow expanding its plications as a pun rose in your fancy? Above all, why, when I fill this very glassof wine, cannot I push the bottle to you, and say, 'Fairford, you are chased!' Why, I say, should notall this be, except because Alan Fairford has not the same true sense of friendship as Darsie Latimer, and will not regard our purses as common, as well as our sentiments?I am alone in the world; my only guardian writes to me of a large fortune which will be minewhen I reach the age of twenty-five complete; my present income is, thou knowest, more thansufficient for all my wants; and yet thou-traitor as thou art to the cause of friendship-dostdeprive me of the pleasure of thy society, and submittest, besides, to self-denial on thine own part, rather than my wanderings should cost me a few guineas more! Is this regard for my purse, or forthine own pride? Is it not equally absurd and unreasonable, whichever source it springs from? Formyself, I tell thee, I have, and shall have, more than enough for both. This same methodical SamuelGriffiths, of Ironmonger Lane, Guildhall, London, whose letter arrives as duly as quarter-day, hassent me, as I told thee, double allowance for this my twenty-first birthday, and an assurance, in hisbrief fashion, that it will be again doubled for the succeeding years, until I enter into possession ofmy own property. Still I am to refrain from visiting England until my twenty-fifth year expires; and itis recommended that I shall forbear all inquiries concerning my family, and so forth, for the present.Were it not that I recollect my poor mother in her deep widow's weeds, with a countenance thatnever smiled but when she looked on me-and then, in such wan and woful sort, as the sun whenhe glances through an April cloud, -were it not, I say, that her mild and matron-like form andcountenance forbid such a suspicion, I might think myself the son of some Indian director, or richcitizen, who had more wealth than grace, and a handful of hypocrisy to boot, and who was breedingup privately, and obscurely enriching, one of whose existence he had some reason to be ashamed.But, as I said before, I think on my mother, and am convinced as much as of the existence of myown soul, that no touch of shame could arise from aught in which she was implicated. Meantime, Iam wealthy, and I am alone, and why does my friend scruple to share my wealth?4Are you not my only friend? and have you not acquired a right to share my wealth? Answer methat, Alan Fairford. When I was brought from the solitude of my mother's dwelling into the tumultof the Gaits' Class at the High School-when I was mocked for my English accent-salted withsnow as a Southern-rolled in the gutter for a Saxon pock-pudding, -who, with stout argumentsand stouter blows, stood forth my defender?-why, Alan Fairf