Even as he slept you might judge this lad of nineteen had a will of his own hidden up in the delicate framework of his body, and resembled his father at least in this, that his outer man was too narrow a tenement for what it contained.

Almost at the first flash of the light his big black eyes opened, and he started to a sitting posture, bewildered, scared.
"Oh! why, hullo, Armstrong! what's the matter ?" "I'm sorry to disturb you, Roger, but--" The boy bounded out of bed and stood facing his tutor in his night- dress.
"But I want you to dress as sharp as you can.

Your father is unwell." "Unwell ?" repeated the boy, shivering.

"You do not mean he is dead ?" "No--no; but ill.

He has had a stroke.