gn words in the text annoyed her and made her bemoan her want of a classical education-she had only attended a Dame's school during some easy months-but she neve

d to herself, and I well remember how she would say to the visitors, 'Ay, ay, it's very true, Doctor, but as you know, "Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, labuntur anni,"' or 'Sal, Mr. So-and-so, my lassie is thriving well, but would it

s about him; he was one of the most engrossing of mortals to her, she admired him prodigiously, pictured him at the head of his caravan, now attacked by savages, now by wild beasts, and adored him for the uneasy hours he gave her, but she was also afraid that he wanted to take me with him, and then she thought he should be put down by law. Explorers' mothers also interested her very much; the books might tell her nothing about them, but she could create them

counter, most of the other books in the shop, which is perhaps the most exquisite way of reading. And I took in a magazine called 'Sunshine,' the most delicious periodical, I am sure, of any day. It cost a halfpenny or a penny a month, and always, as I fondly remember, had a continued tale about the dearest girl, who sold water-cress, which is a dainty not grown and I suppose never seen in my native town. This romantic little creature took such hold of my imagination that I cannot eat water-cress even now without emotion. I lay in bed wondering what she would be up to in the next number; I have lost trout because when they nibbled my mind was wandering with her; my early life was embittered by her not arriving regularly on the first of the month. I know not whether it was owing to her loitering on the way one month to an extent flesh and blood could not bear, or because we had exhausted the penny library, but

great part of a three-volume novel. The publisher replied that the sum for which he would print it was a hundred and-however, that was not the important point (I had sixpence): where he stabbed us both was in writin

en ladies, about the time I left the university, what I was to be, and when I replied brazenly, 'An author,' they flung up their hands, and one exclaimed reproachfully, 'And you an M.A.!' My mother's views at first were not dissimilar; for long she took mine jestingly as something I would grow out of, and after

itched, from the board to the hob, and so to bed. He might have gone out had the idea struck him, but in the years I knew him, the last of his brave life, I think he was only in the open twice, when he 'flitted'-changed his room for another hard by. I did not see him make these journeys, but I seem to see him now, and he is somewhat dizzy in the odd atmosphere; in one hand he

do to be fo

he age to

nge to me to discover presently that he had not been thinking of me at all, but of his own young days, when that couplet sang in his head, and he, t

had dropped in, and this was for her ears only,

do to be fo

he age to

at she could have been his mother had that other son lived, he might have managed it from sheer love of her, but for my part I can smile at one of those two figures on the stair now, having long given up the dream of being for ever known, and seeing myself more akin to my friend, the tailor, for as he was found at the end on his board, so I hope shall I be found at my handloom, doing honestly t

the pen, and they all told the same shuddering tale. London, which she never saw, was to her a monster that licked up country youths as they stepped from the train; there were the garrets in which they sat abject, and the park seats where they passed the night. Those park seats were the mon

most gleeful, popping into telegraph offices to wire my father and sister that we should not be home till late, winking to my books in lordly shop-windows, lunching at restaurants (and remembering not to call it dinner), saying, 'How do?' to Mr. Alfred Tennyson when we passed him in Regent Street, calling at publishers' offices for cheque, when 'Will you take care of it, or shall I?' I aske

h as would keep body and soul togeth

over, mother,

expect that a

you can rely on her good-nature (note this), not a word about the other lady. When at last she took me in I grew so fond of her that I called her by the other's name, and even now I think at times that there was more fun in the little sister, but I began by wooing her with contributions that were all misfits. In an old book I find columns of notes about works projected at this time, nearly all to consist of essays on deeply uninteresting subjects; the lightest was to be a volume on the older satirists, beginning with Skelton and Tom Nash-the half of that manuscript still lies in a dusty chest-the only story w

e you my heroine

e said, and we both laughed at the no

k, and it suddenly struck me that the leaders were the one thing I had always skipped. Leaders! How were they written? what were they about? My mother was already sitting triumphant among my socks, and I durst not let her see me quaking. I retired to ponder, and presently she came to me with the daily paper. Which were the leaders? she wante