pursuit the teacher fell short of his intention
and into brawling floods. Once he came
forth from out a regular bullfincher, which I
had burrowed, and slipped under on my stomach
like a rabbit; he leaving his short black
wig pendant upon the bushes, " hanging so
light, and hanging so high, on the topmost
twig that looked up at the sky;" but still he
kept on manfully, and the weight of my
burden began to tell upon me. I could hear
his cochons! and mon dieus! more audibly
with every stride; and I determined, as a
last resource, to try the river. Alas, swimming
with one's clothes and boots on, with a
bundle on one's back, is very different from
the Leander method, and I should have been
drowned but for Monsieur Pifar. As it was,
I lost my consciousness; and, when it returned,
I found him chafing my hands with great
solicitude, and calling himself scélérat, and
me his enfant,—but for all that he took me
back to school. I was to be made an example
of, and had two days allowed me to get
strong in after I had recovered from my dip;
just as pigs are cared for previous to their
intended massacre.

Mr. Parrot's kind intentions were, however,
frustrated by my being sent for to the death-
bed of my father. My mother had not dared
to mention my name, so grievously had I
been misrepresented to him; but one day he
looked about him anxiously, and asked
whether he had not another son. From that
time, until I tardily arrived, he muttered,
"Charlie— Charlie," with all the pertinacity
of a dying man. I found him propped up in
his wide-spread bed, with all his family
around him, nearly at his last. He forgave
me all my faults, and spoke most lovingly
to me.

"And you Charles, too, have something to
forgive I know. Robert shake hands with
him, and promise to befriend him when I am
gone."

Robert obeyed, and said impressively:—

"I will do the best I can for his good,
father."

"And you, daughter Susan, take his hand
also," he whispered, for his voice was leaving
him. But she drew herself up stiffly, and refused;
saying, she could not be so hypocritical
for any one, certainly not at such a time as
that; neither, for all my father could urge,
would she kiss my mother, but she did shake
hands with her across the bed.

This sad scene, at length, was over, and I
was sent out of the room; nor ever saw the
dear old man again. His death, however, did
not so move me, as my mother's altered looks;
she was pale and thin with watching, and had
grown spiritless and haggard from the cruelty
of those who should have comforted her; now
she was forlorn and widowed, she bowed
before their sneers and cutting words, as a lily
before the bitter wind. While my father yet
lay dead in an upper chamber, Robert and his
sister began to talk of money-matters, and
even suggested our departure from the house.
The will had left all to them, save one thousand
pounds to me, and five hundred pounds
a-year to my mother, during her life. Like
Hagar and Ishmael were we cast forth, and
the places that we had loved and lived in so long,
were to know us never more. Ishmael was the
first mauvais sujet, and I the last, I thought,
as we drove over the hill-top by the windmill,
and left the valley behind us for
ever.

My hope was to be able to support myself
without being a burden to my mother, but
she had made her plans far otherwise; I was
to be sent to college, at whatever discomfort
to herself, before choosing for myself some
profession that need not dissever me from her.
Her heart, alas! was so fully fixed on me,
that she gave no thought to the deadly disease
at work within her, about to take from
me, not only my chance of worldly fortune,
but the greatest good fortune Heaven can
send a man— a loving mother.

Surely, there is no place where men of such
various expectations meet upon this earth, on
so nearly the same level as at an English
University. One small set of men, especially of
fast men, often comprehending within it the
titled heir of half a county, and the ambitious
youth, who is spending his little capital, all
that he will have in the world before him, in
making merry during his three college years;
it requires no effort of his own to thrust back
the wretchedness that awaits him, until the
very last moment, youth, high spirits, and the
society of those who never think of work as
a necessity, ignore the dreadful fact as long
as possible, and Lord Raffle Oaks and Sir
Rayther Rapid, have no reason to think but
that some ancestral mansion, or great town-
house, awaits in their gay companion, as it
does in themselves, a present or future owner.
What a fearful training is this for a penniless
man! Accustomed as he has been naturally
to all sorts of luxury and enjoyment, but to
the most deferential and obsequious behaviour
from those beneath him, he will one day find
the bowing tradesman ready to give him in
charge for loitering about his warehouse in
suspicious clothing, or the stable groom, who
has worn out his hatbrim with servility, to
challenge him to fight for beer. There is
nothing of this that has not happened again and
again, but it did not chance to me; although
I could not bring myself to read, I never forgot
that my mother's means were narrowed
tor my sake, and whenever I hunted, or c
ommitted an extravagance, I invariably devoted
some of my own one thousand pounds, to pay
the debt, which legacy for some reason, or
other, I had not yet received; riding, indeed,
was my chief temptation, and I gave way to
it very often, my favourite costume was a cut-
away coat, and I took a pride in a certain
bandiness of my legs. One day, as I straddled
into Hall, with a sporting air, I
perceived a well-known face at the high table fix