direction. But now the place had lost its
reverence. The boarders were going home en masse;
all excepting Young Peebles, and a few colonial
young gentlemen. The father of Young Peebles
had been obliged to go abroad for health's sake,
and so I (Young Peebles) was left with Old
Bridles.

During this festive time Doctor Bridles fell
into a kind of paternal manner, which fitted him
uneasily. He was now in the parlour, in his
curule chair. He held a letter in his hand.
"Peebles," he said, "I have sent for you."
(This I knew.) " I have sent for you," he
repeated, and his face assumed an expression of
severe Roman majesty, which was kept among
the parlour properties for situations of importance.
I grew uneasy in my mind. There was that
guilty business of two parlour apples— débris of
the parlour dessert, spoliated mysteriously — and
spectres of the purloined fruit began to disturb
me. That had been six weeks ago; but it was
known that the school police was always vigilant,
and that a statute of limitations was not to hold
in shielding malefactors from the offended laws of
their country. I, Young Peebles, trembled before
Old Bridles. The revulsion was tremendous,
when, instead of calling in the lictors, the doctor
said, in his grandest manner, " Peebles, you are
to go home!" Something like a whole magazine
of squibs, crackers, and yet more magnificent
Catherine-wheels, seemed to have been suddenly
discharged at my feet. The parlour became
filled with light, the bells began to ring, the
music to play.

When the details came out, it was found that
I was not going home, strictly speaking. It was
Plusher— Plusher who had married my own and
best loved sister— Plusher the noble, the brave,
the gallant, the beautiful— Plusher of the Dog,*
who had come forward in this splendid manner,
at the last moment, but not too late. To say the
truth, I had privately reckoned on Plusher all
along, and had been deeply wounded— wounded
to the quick— as Christmas-eve wore on, and I
found Plusher not coming forward in the brave
handsome way that might be expected from
Plusher. Yet it was more in grief than in anger;
and it was only when all hope did indeed seem
fled, and when Plusher was proved by all human
calculation, and the arrival of the last train, to
be false, that I fairly gave way— that is,
repaired to a private place and howled mournfully.
And yet, even then, the glaring inconsistency in
Plusher's behaviour struck the youthful mind.
Why so surpassingly brave, generous, noble on
one occasion, and now——? Perhaps there was
some evil agency at work— a cloud or a fiend
(either would do)— and before I would tear him
from my heart, perhaps—— But I am afraid I
did tear honest Plusher from my heart that very
uight when retiring to my lonely pillow.
* See vol. ix., p. 253.

However, he had now redeemed himself nobly,
splendidly, superbly. He was John Plusher still,
which of course he would have been under any
circumstances. But he was the old John Plusher
with three times three, and nine times nine, and
English hearths, and homes, and the British
Grenadiers.

In a flurry and a flutter truly delightful, and
with the pistons of a small portable steam-engine
thumping up and down over my heart, I left
Doctor Bridles's roof. I did not care to affect the
decent grief which, as part of the deportment at
parting, the rules of the establishment required.
I went my way with unconcealed joy; the doctor
measuring me with his severest Roman eye.
Ah, what days of delight those old days of
going home!— the moments devoted to packing
— to the agitated, disordered, imperfect process,
known as packing. There was none of that
skill or science in the operation which comes
later with personal responsibility. For then all
our property was in trustees: held to our use
as it were, and at the peril of those clothed with
the trust. Charming function! And how pleasing
that flutter, that palpitation of the heart,
verging almost on symptoms of disease; that
exquisite feeling of unrest and unquiet which
was almost painful, and yet was acceptable.
Delicious ceremony of " going home!"

John Plusher welcomed me at the station,
waiting patiently with a stick under his arm,
carried much as a cavalry officer carries his
sword, and a face so alight with good humour that
it looked as if he had got some one to hold a wax
candle inside! Noble, honest John! but I did not
tell how my faith in him had faltered. He wrung
my hand, and addressed me cheerfully. (He
always seemed to speak in a series of short
modulated shouts.) In the cab he mapped out a whole
programme of entertainments, graduated in a
sort of series, and something allotted to each day.
Such Eastern liberality made me literally gasp,
and I could only murmur uncouth sounds, meant
for thanks, proceeding from me in a half savage
state. I was not fluent by nature; and could
only exhibit my gratitude in a gamut of " Ohs,"
increasing in intensity. The banquet was indeed
bewildering; the waxwork, the voyage in the
balloon (on the dioramic principle) which would
take us to visit the principal cities of Europe
(how delightful when the canvas moved on
slowly, a little wrinkled, and the music began,
and the gentleman-like lecturer announced that
the next "voo" would depict the Halt of the
Caravan in the Desert!); the Crystal Palace, the
Polytechnic (including a real descent in the
diving-bell), and oh! I began to breathe thickly
as he named that place of Paradise, THE
PANTOMIME!

I am afraid, when I thought so affectionately
of going home to honest John Plusher, some
gorgeous picture associated with this class of
entertainment was before my eyes. Perhaps the
notion was mixed. Once before I had been
taken to this splendid spectacle; and though