the little lass, Pulchrior, thought a good deal
of Quandoquidem in her girlish way, and did
trifles of sewing for him, and blushed very
prettily whenever she saw him.

"Miss Pulchrior, please," said Quandoquidem,
in a strange hard voice, as he entered
the keeping-room, "the Doctor's not coming
home yet awhile, and he's sent me for his
leathern satchel."

He looked so hot and flushed, his brow was
so lowering and ill-boding, that the Doctor's
little daughter was frightened. She could not
help suspecting, though she knew not what to
suspect.

"And did papa send you? " she began,
falteringly

"Miss Pulchrior," interjected Quandoquidem,
as if offended, " do you think I would tell
you a story?"

Pulchrior slowly advanced to the table, and
took up the leathern bag containing the
magnum opus of her father, Pantologos the
erudite. She handed it to Quandoquidem,
looking timidly in his face, but the eyes
of the widow's son were averted. His
hand shook as he received the parcel;
but he hurriedly thanked her, and, a moment
afterwards, was gone. Had Pulchrior followed
him to the door, she would have seen
that the widow's son did not take the road
towards the grammar school; but that, like
a fox harbouring evil designs towards a
henroost, he slunk furtively round a corner
and watching his opportunity, crept round
the stone steps, across the narrow street, and
so into his mother's cottage.

Pulchrior was not aware of this, because
she did not follow the guilty Thomas: and
she did not follow him because it occurred to
her to sit down on a lowly stool and have a
good cry. She cried she knew not why; only
Tom (she called him Tom) was so different
from his wonted state, and at the bottom of
her heart there was a vague supicion and
terror of she knew not what. But, at
the termination of the good cry she
recovered her spirits; and, when the kettle
began to sing for tea, she was singing too;
albeit the insulting tongue of Volumnia
upon the topic of buttered toast was enough
to spoil the temper of Robin Goodfellow
himself.

Doctor Pantologos slept in the great arm
chair so long and so soundly, that the old
woman with a broom, who came to give
the cobwebs change of air, from the roof to
the floor (she would as soon have thought of
burning the schoolroom down, as sweeping
them away altogether), had to stir him up
with the handle of her household implement
before she could awaken him. Then Doctor
Pantologos arose shaking himself and yawning
mightily, and went home to tea.

That repast was not quite ready when he
made his appearance; for the red-headed
children having tortured the cat until it was mad
and they were hungry, had made a raid
upon the buttered toast, and had eaten
it up. Then Volumnia had to abuse
Pulchrior for this, which took some time, and
fresh toast had to be made, which took more;
so, the Doctor was informed that he would
have to wait a quarter of an hour.

"Very well, Sister Volumnia," said the
meek Doctor. " I hanker not so much after
the fleshpots of Egypt, but that I can wait.
Ad interim, I will take a pipe of tobacco,
and correct my seventy-seventh chapter.
Pulchrior, my child, the leathern satchel!"

"The satchel, papa! " cried his daughter;
"why, you sent Tom—I mean Master
Quandoquidem—for it."

"I sent—Satchel—Quandoquidem!" gasped
the Doctor.

"Yes, and I gave it him an hour ago."

The Doctor turned with wild eyes to his
luckless child. He clasped his forehead
with his hands, and staggered towards
the door. His hand was on the latch,
when a burst of derisive laughter fell upon
his ear like red-hot pitch. He looked
through the open window of his chamber,
through the screen of ivy, and woodbine, and
honeysuckle, and eglantine—he could have
looked through the old cross had it been
standing, but it had been laid low, hundreds
of years. He looked across its platform,
right through the open window of the widow
Venturia's cottage; and there he saw a red
glare as of fire burning, and the boy Quandoquidem
standing beside it with a leathern
satchel in his hand, and his form reddened
by the reflection like an imp of Hades.

Doctor Pantologos tried to move but he
could not. Atlas was tied to one foot, and
Olympus to the other: Pelion sat upon
Ossa a-top of his burning head.

The boy Quandoquidem drew a large sheet
of paper from the satchel, and brandished it
aloft. Had it been a thousand miles off, the
Doctor could have read it. It was the title
page of his darling treatise. The horrible boy
thrust it into the fire, and then another and
another sheet, and finally the satchel itself.

"So much for the Digamma, old Pan! " he
cried with a ferocious laugh, as he stirred the
burning mass with a poker.

"Miserere Domine!" said Doctor Pantologos,
and he fell down in a dead faint.

Volumnia and Pulchrior came to his assistance;
and, while the former severely bade
him not to take on about a lot of rubbishing
old paper, the latter administered more effectual
assistance in the shape of restoratives.
The red-headed children made a successful
descent upon the fresh buttered toast, and ate
it up with astonishing rapidity.

When Doctor Pantologos came to himself
he began to weep.

"My treatise! my treatise! " he cried. " The
pride, the hope, the joy, of my life! My son
and my grandson, my mother and my wife!
Poverty I have borne, and scorn, and the
ignorance of youth, and the neglect of the