round and perceived that it was little Berresford, who had come to tell him that he had said it. "Yes, Master Milner, I have said it, and Mr. Simson said it was very well; but I have more to learn before supper."

"Come to me, then," said Henry, "after dinner, and I will help you; and I hope that you never again will fall into such disgrace as you did this morning.'

The little boy gave a bound, and Henry was just passing in at the door of the great hall, which was used as the eating and play-room of the boys, when he heard his name repeated by a shrill voice; and looking round, he saw the person who had made tea for him the evening before, standing on the steps of the door at the front of the house, and vociferating after him with an eagerness which filled him with apprehensions, for he could not conceive what could be the matter. "Who is that lady?" he asked, addressing the boy that stood next him.

In reply to this question, the boy repeated some very extraordinary name, which Henry did not comprehend; and as the calls upon him from the top of the steps were urged in a still sharper tone, he thought it best to obey them.

The person in question was no other than Miss Judy Meckin, who, being a poor cousin of Mrs. Matthews, held the honourable situation of stocking-mender to the whole family, to which especial duty some others were attached, to wit, that of packing and unpacking, combing the little boys on Saturday, and seeing that every one of the three lower classes was provided with a pinafore. This good lady always wore a sharp and discontented expression of countenance; and though she had experienced, perhaps, more than her due share of the contempt of her fellow-creatures, she was attached, in the last degree, to all those circumstances of pomp and pride which worldly persons commonly love, and of which her own situation was entirely divested. She was, however, faithful in her duties, and would in consequence have been respected in her situation, had she not continually betrayed the uneasiness she felt in being compelled to endure a situation so totally inglorious in the eyes of the world: to be sure her labours, (like those of Sisyphus), to use a classic allusion, were never finished, and were every Monday morning to be commenced again; the basket of unmended stockings being ever full, and the heads of the little boys ever requiring the

assistance of the comb; nevertheless, a patient and pious acquiescence in the Divine will might have shed sweetness even over these ordinary duties, and a just knowledge of her own capabilities might have made Miss Meckin thankful for a situation in which she was enabled to make herself useful in her generation, and to partake of the necessaries of life, while awaiting the fulfilment of those sweet promises whereby the humblest individuals of the human race are assured, that all which they have endured for the sake of Jesus Christ on earth will be made up to them in the full fruition of a higher degree of happiness than we are now able even to conceive. But what had Miss Judy Meckin to do with ideas and prospects of this kind, inasmuch as she had no manner of taste for such prospects of future happiness as Scripture is able to reveal. Never had her chariot, even for a moment, been lifted up on the fiery wheels of inspiration; on the contrary, her imagination was rather like the chariots of Pharaoh, without any wheels at all, and if ever her fancy took a flight beyond her basket of stockings, it was to expatiate upon a new bonnet, cap, or shawl, lately seen on a neighbour's person, or to covet some circumstance of pomp and luxury which she beheld in the possession of another.

Her present business with Henry was to tie a pinafore upon him, to take away a new hat, in which he had travelled, and give him his second best, which, my reader will be glad to be informed, was a decent black hat (cream bowl having descended to Maurice, and in consequence being left behind), and to utter a long oration on the carelessness of the person who had packed up his clothes, and sent one stocking with a ladder in it, at least three inches long.

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"A ladder," said Henry, a ladder in my stocking,

ma'am !"

"Yes, Master Milner," said Miss Judy, "and at least as long as my forefinger."

"Why, it must be the ladder I made for my hermit," said Henry.

"Then you made it on purpose, did you?" said Miss Judy "you were allowed to do what you pleased at home, to be sure, Master Milner, for they tell me you had it all your own way there; but let me tell you, if I catch you at such work now you are at school, I'll let your master know, as sure as I am here."

Henry looked all amazement, and thought that he certainly was not very likely to spend much time at Clent-green in making ladders, notwithstanding which should a freak of the kind take him, he could not well understand wherein the great sin would be. What puzzled him however was, how this ladder could have got into his stocking; and he was just preparing to ask Miss Judy to give it him, when a burst of shrill laughter from behind the hall door made him start, and Miss Priscilla Mathews, his master's youngest daughter, appeared the next moment, and, giving him a pretty smart tap on the back, at the same time exclaimed-" Why, Henry Milner, how long have you been such a goose?” "A goose, ma'am," said Henry.

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Why, don't you know what a ladder in a stocking is?" go along, she added, giving him a push; "go and get your dinner, and learn more wit," adding, as he descended the stairs under the impulse of her hand, and at the hazard, if he had not been very active, of falling headlong into the court, "what simpletons those homebred boys are; I don't think Henry Milner at this moment knows his left hand from his right."

Henry heard no more, and what he had heard made him a little angry; however he had made up his mind, with the divine blessing, to take no notice of all the little provocations he might encounter; he therefore proceeded quietly to the hall, where he found the boys seated at two immense tables, at the head of one of which was Mr. Simson, and at the other Mr. Perkins, regaling themselves with roast mutton and potatoes, while a man servant at one table, and a maid at another, were serving the company with more haste than ceremony; the clatter of knives and forks, spoons and cups precluding all attempts at conversation of every kind.

To the legs of mutton succeeded four huge puddings, in which were abundant lumps of suet, and a certain quantity of plumbs; these last, however, were scattered with so sparing a hand, that we might not unaptly apply to them the following passage in the Æneid:

'Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vasto."

Notwithstanding the scarcity of plums, every thing was good, wholesome, and abundant, and immediately after dinner Mr. Perkins, whose duty it happened to be that day, put on his hat, and called the boys to walk.

Marten and Wellings had some engagement at home, they were therefore not of the party; and Henry, who had not yet formed many acquaintances, was not sorry when little Berresford crept to his side, and seemed anxious to engage his attention again.

Henry had from the first found himself interested in this little boy, who, together with a sweet countenance, had gentle and pleasing manners, but was accounted one of the idlest subjects in the school; this child was the son of a military man who was abroad, and was hence deprived of those paternal encouragements by which idle children are sometimes induced to make exertions which they would not otherwise do. Henry did not know the situation of the child, but he felt himself attracted to him, and the circumstance of his being the size of Maurice was no small recommendation.

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Come," said Henry, "bring your book, George; I think they call you George, and I will teach you as we go along."

"Will you, Master Milner," said the little boy; "oh! if you will let me be with you, I shan't be called dunce Berresford much longer, I am sure I shan't; here, Master Milner, here is my book, I have a page to say before supper; there it is."

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"And it is divided into four clauses," said Henry, 'now, I advise you to make yourself master of one clause at a time; come, set to work, I will hear you as you go along."

It was a new country, and a new scene of life, and Henry wanted to look about him; but he fixed his attention on the little boy's grammar, and had brought him twice through it before they had crossed the common, which was of considerable extent, though in so doing he had to call upon him constantly, to attend and mind what he was about; and, indeed, Henry himself had more than once found it difficult to fix his own mind upon what he was doing, for his school-fellows fluttered about him like birds, and seemed bent on diverting him from his purpose, by every kind of antic which could be conceived.

Henry, however, had heard Roger Clayton say to a boy of the name of Smith; "I vow, I'll make him put that book away, and leave dunce Berresford to his own stupid head;" and, having heard so much, he was on his guard, and though Roger shouted in his ears, Smith

tumbled stones in his way to make him stumble, another whistled, a fourth cracked a whip, a fifth uttered a stave, which, by-the-by, would not have been out of its place on an ale-house bench, a sixth produced a blast through his nose, not unlike the sound of a cracked trumpet, and a seventh, for we must have a complete number, exercised his skill on the Jew's harp close to the ears of Henry and his protegé; nevertheless, the former preserved an unmoved gravity, and suffered not a muscle of his face to be disconcerted, or his attention to be diverted, till he had made his little friend repeat his lesson.

"Another half hour's study will do the work, George, and we will have it by-and-by."

Then, to the utter amazement of all his late tormentors, he, the same Henry Milner, tumbled three or four times successively, head over heels, after which he rolled on before the amazed company, to a considerable distance, on his feet and hands, with the motion of a wheel with four spokes.

"Halloo! Halloo!" exclaimed the boys; "well done, Harry Milner; well done grave airs; well done Miss Molly; why, how is this, Roger, you told us he could do nothing but pray?"

Henry heard little of all this, but having finished his convolutions, appeared at some distance standing erect, and remaining perfectly still till his companions came up to him, when he made a few more somersets, and some other revolutions on his axis, and appeared again standing upright, still farther on.

By this time Henry had rolled himself into the good graces of many of his young companions, and in consequence they gathered round him, more in the spirit of good-fellowship than any which they had evidenced before, putting various questions to him, and adding more before he had time to make any reply.

"Who taught you to do that, Milner ?" said one, alluding to his flourishes; "Jack Reese taught me, but he a'ant half so clever as you are."

"Milner, I say," said another, "are you a good hand at nine-pins ?"

"Will you lend me your bat, Milner; I know you have one, for I saw them take a new one out of the carriage yesterday?" said a third.

66 Were you ever at school before ?" asked a fourth.