With his talent and acuteness, he might be the most eminent man of his day, if he had only known how to use them.

But he was always the same careless, soft-hearted fellow, never knowing how to do himself any good, and he is the same still, not a day older nor wiser.

It was a fatal thing for him that there was that country practice ready for him to step into, and even of that he does not make as good a thing as he might.

Of course, he married early, and there he is, left a widower with a house full of children--screaming babies, and great tall sons growing up, and he without a notion what he shall do with them, as heedless as ever--saving nothing, of course.

I always knew it was what he would come to, if he would persist in burying himself in that wretched little country town, but I hardly thought, after all he has gone through, to find him such a mere boy still.