they started and hid themselves, close together
in the dark, I thought of the old life (it had
grown old already) in the cellar.

How not to be this worldly little devil?
How not to have a repugnance towards myself
as I had towards the rats? I hid in a
corner of one of the smaller chambers, frightened
at myself and crying (it was the first time
I had ever cried for any cause not purely
physical), and I tried to think about it. One of
the farm-ploughs came into my range of view
just then, and it seemed to help me as it went
on with its two horses up and down the field so
peacefully and quietly.

There was a girl of about my own age in the
farm-house family, and she sat opposite to me
at the narrow table at meal-times. It had come
into my mind at our first dinner, that she might
take the fever from me. The thought had not
disquieted me then; I had only speculated
how she would look under the altered
circumstances, and whether she would die. But it
came into my mind now, that I might try to
prevent her taking the fever, by keeping away
from her. I knew I should have but
scrambling board, if I did; so much the less worldly
and less devilish the deed would be, I thought.

From that hour I withdrew myself at early
morning into secret corners of the ruined house,
and remained hidden there until she went to
bed. At first, when meals were ready, I used
to hear them calling me; and then my resolution
weakened. But I strengthened it again,
by going further off into the ruin and getting
out of hearing. I often watched for her at the
dim windows; and, when I saw that she was
fresh and rosy, felt much happier.

Out of this holding her in my thoughts, to
the humanising of myself, I suppose some
childish love arose within me. I felt in some
sort dignified by the pride of protecting her,
by the pride of making the sacrifice for her. As
my heart swelled with that new feeling, it
insensibly softened about Mother and Father. It
seemed to have been frozen before, and now to
be thawed. The old ruin and all the lovely
things that haunted it were not sorrowful for
me only, but sorrowful for Mother and Father
as well. Therefore did I cry again, and often
too.

The farm-house family conceived me to be of
a morose temper, and were very short with
me: though they never stinted me in such
broken fare as was to be got, out of regular
hours. One night when I lifted the kitchen
latch at my usual time, Sylvia (that was her
pretty name) had but just gone out of the room.
Seeing her ascending the opposite stairs, I stood
still at the door. She had heard the clink of
the latch, and looked round.

"George," she called to me, in a pleased
voice: " to-morrow is my birthday, and we are
to have a fiddler, and there's a party of boys
and girls coming in a cart, and we shall dance.
I invite you. Be sociable for once, George."

"I am very sorry, miss," I answered, "but
I—but no; I can't come."

"You are a disagreeable, ill-humoured lad,"
she returned, disdainfully, "and I ought not to
have asked you. I shall never speak to you
again."

As I stood with my eyes fixed on the fire
after she was gone, I felt that the farmer bent
his brows upon me.

"Eh, lad," said he, "Sylvy's right. You're
as moody and broody a lad as never I set eyes
on yet!"

I tried to assure him that I meant no harm;
but he only said, coldly: "Maybe not, maybe
not. There! Get thy supper, get thy supper,
and then thou canst sulk to thy heart's content
again."

Ah! If they could have seen me next day in
the ruin, watching for the arrival of the cart full of
merry young guests; if they could have seen me
at night, gliding out from behind the ghostly
statue, listening to the music and the fall of
dancing feet, and watching the lighted farm-house
windows from the quadrangle when all the ruin
was dark; if they could have read my heart as
I crept up to bed by the back way, comforting
myself with the reflection, "They will take no
hurt from me;" they would not have thought
mine a morose or an unsocial nature!

It was in these ways that I began to form
a shy disposition; to be of a timidly silent
character under misconstruction; to have an
inexpressible, perhaps a morbid, dread of ever
being sordid or worldly. It was in these ways
that my nature came to shape itself to such a
mould, even before it was affected by the
influences of the studious and retired life of a
poor scholar.

        A "SEAT" OF THEATRICALS.

When I was at school, I used to learn out of
a geography-book that such and such towns
were the "seats " of this or that trade. When
Leeds was flung at me interrogatively from
the magisterial desk, I, having faithfully learned
my lesson, promptly replied, "A town in York-
shire, a great seat of the woollen trade." I
wondered vaguely what sort of a seat Leeds
was, and how the woollen trade sat down upon it.

I forget what the geography-book said Liverpool
was, but if, after personal observation of
the town, on various occasions, the question were
put to me, I should answer, "Liverpool, town in
Lancashire, a great seat of theatricals." I have
been many times in Liverpool; but I cannot
call to mind that I ever went there without, on
the evening of my arrival, making the round
of the theatres, and finding myself, immediately
after breakfast on the following morning, standing
on the stage of one or other of them,
witnessing a rehearsal. The rest of the day has
generally been spent in lunching with one
manager, dining with a second, and supping with a
third. Seeing Liverpool through this "medium,"
witnessing scenes of three or four different
pieces performed by as many separate and
distinct companies in one night, viewing, in my