trouble than anything which had happened to her for a long time. If she had got her will, her husband would have gone up instantly to inquire into the matter, and it is possible that the identity of Dick and his mother might have been discovered at once, and some future complications spared. The old lady wrung her hands and wept salt tears over the idea that "his mother's blood" was asserting itself thus, and that her son Richard's story might be about to be repeated again, but with worse and deeper shades of misery. Lord Eskside, however, who had been so much disturbed by dangers which affected her very lightly, was not at all moved by this. He demurred completely to the idea of going to Eton, but agreed that Val himself should be written to, and explanations asked. Val wrote a very magnificent letter in reply, as fine a production as ever sixteen (but he was seventeen by this time) put forth. He related with dignity how he had encountered a friendly boy on the river's side who helped him when his boat swamped-how he had discovered that he was an admirable fellow, supporting his old mother, and in want of work-how he had exerted himself to procure work for this deserving stranger, and how he had gone to his house two or three times to see how he was getting on. "I have been lending him books," wrote Val, "and doing what I could to help him to get on. His master, who took him on my recommendation, and Lichen's (you know Lichen? the captain of the boats) says he never had such a good man in his place; and I have thought it was my duty to help him on. If you and grandmamma think I ought not to do so," Valentine concluded majestically, "I confess I shall be very sorry; for Brown is one of the best

fellows that ever was born." Lady Eskside wept when she read this letter-tears of joy, and pride, and happy remorse at having thought badly of her boy. She wrote him such a letter as moved even Val's boyish insensibility, with a tenpound note in it, with which she intrusted him to buy something for his protégé. "It is like your sweet nature to try to help him," she said; "and oh, Val, my darling, I am so ashamed of myself for having a momentary fear!" Mr Grinder had a somewhat cold response from Lord Eskside, but not so trenchant as my lady would have wished it. "We are very much obliged to you for your care," said the old lord; "but I think Valentine has given such good reasons for his conduct that we must not be hard upon him. Of course nothing of this sort should be allowed to go too far." Thus Val was victorious; but I am glad to have to tell of him that as soon as he was sure of this, he went off directly and begged Mr Grinder's pardon. "I had no right, sir, to speak to you so," said the boy. They were better friends ever after, I believe; and for a long time Lady Eskside was not troubled with any terrors about Val's "mother's blood!"

All this time Dick "got on" so, that it became a wonder to see him. He had finished Val's carving long ago, and presented it to his gracious patron, declining with many blushes the "five bob " which he had been promised. Before he was eighteen, he had grown, in virtue of his absolute trustworthiness, to be the first and most important ministrant at the "rafts." Everybody knew him, everybody liked him. So far as young squires and lordlings constitute that desirable thing, Dick lived in the very best society; his manners ought to have been good, for they were moulded on the manners

of our flower of English youth. I am not very sure myself that he owed so much to this (for Eton boys, so far as I have seen, have a quite extraordinary resemblance to other boys) as to his naturally sweet and genial temper, his honest and generous humbleness and unselfishness. Dick Brown was the very last person Dick thought of, what ever he might happen to be doing and this is the rarest of all qualities in youth. Then he was so happy in having his way, and "a house," and in overcoming his mother's fancy for constant movement, that his work was delightful to him. It was hard work, and entailed a very long strain of his powers-too long, perhaps, for a growing boy-but yet it was pleasant, and united a kind of busy play with continuous exertion. All summer long he was on the river-side, the busiest of lads or men, in noiseless boating-shoes, and with a dress which continually improved till Dick became the nattiest as well as the handiest of his kind. He had a horror of everything that was ugly and dirty: when the others lounged about in their hour's rest, while their young clients were at school, Dick would be hot about something;-painting and rubbing the old boats, scraping the oars, bringing cleanness, and order, and that bold kind of decoration which belongs to boat-building, to the resuscitation of old gigs and "tubs" which had seemed good for nothing. He would even look after the flowers in the little strip of garden, and sow the seeds, and trim the border, while he waited, if there happened to be no old boats to cobble. He was happy when the sun shone upon nothing but orderliness and (as he felt it) beauty. In his own rooms this quality of mind was still more apparent. I have said that he and his mother lived with Spar

tan simplicity. This enabled him to do a great deal more with his wages than his more luxurious companions. First, comforts, and then superfluities-elegances, if we may use the word-began to flow into the room. The elegances, perhaps, were not very elegant at first, but his taste improved at the most rapid rate. When he had nothing better to do, he would go and take counsel with Fullady the wood-carver, and get lessons from him, helping now and then at a piece of work, to the astonishment of his master. In the evening he carved small pieces of furniture, with which he decorated his dwelling. In winter he was initiated into the mysteries of boat-building, and worked at this trade with absolute devotion and real enjoyment. In short, Dick's opinion was that nobody so happy as himself had ever lived-his work was as good as play, and better, he said; and he was paid for doing what it gave him the greatest pleasure to do a perennial joke with the gentle fellow. In all this prosperity Dick never forgot his first patron. When Val rowed, Dick ran by the bank shouting till he was hoarse. When Val was preferred to be one of the sublime Eight, who are as gods among men, he went almost out of his wits with pride and joy. "We'll win now, sure enough, at Henley!" he said to his mother, with unconscious appropriation of the possessive pronoun. But when Dick heard of the squabble between Val and his tutor, his good sense showed at once. young patron a step aside, taking off his hat with almost an exaggeration of respect-"Don't come to our house again, sir," he said; "the gentleman is in the right. You are very kind to be so free with me, to talk and make me almost a friend; but it wouldn't do if every Eton gentleman were to make friends with

He took his

the fellows on the water-side-the gentleman is in the right."

"My people don't think so, Brown," cried Val; "look here, what has been sent me to get you something," and he showed his tenpound note.

Dick's eyes flashed with eager pleasure, not for the money, though even that was no small matter. "I don't understand," he added, after a moment, shaking his head. "I don't think they'd like it either, if they knew. You must have been giving too good an account, sir, of mother and me."

Val only laughed, and crushed the crisp bank-note into the pocket of his trousers. "I mean to spend it for you on Monday, when I am going to town on leave," he said. He was going to see Miss Percival, his grandmother's friend. And, in fact, he did buy Dick a number of things, which seemed to his youthful fancy appropriate in the circumstances. He bought him some books, a few of those standard works which Val knew ought to be in everybody's library, though he did not much trouble them himself; and a capital box of tools, and drawing materials, for Dick had displayed some faculty that way. Both the boys were as happy as possible-the one in bestowing, the other in receiving, this gift. Lady Eskside's present gave them both the deepest pleasure, though she was so far from knowing who was the recipient of her bounty. "Brown," said Val, solemnly, after they had enjoyed the delight of going over every separate article, and examining and admiring it-" Brown, you mind what I am going to say. You must rise in the world; you have made a great deal of progress already, and you must make still more. Heaps of fellows not half so good as you have got to be rich, and raised themselves by their exertions. You must improve

your mind; and you must take the good of every advantage that offers, and rise in the world."

"I'll try, sir," said Dick, with the cheeriest laugh. He was ready to have promised to scale the skies, if Val had recommended it. He arranged his books carefully in a little bookcase he had made, which was far handsomer than the old one which had received the yellow volumes-overflowings of Val's puerile library. I am not sure that Macaulay and Gibbon instructed him much more than the Headless Horseman' had done. His was not a mind which was much affected by literature; he cared more for doing than for reading, and liked his box of tools better than his library. Musing over his work, he revolved many things in his head, and got to have very just views about many matters in which his education had been a blank; but he did not get his ideas out of books. That was not a method congenial to him, though he would have acknowledged with respect that it was most probably the right way. But anyhow, Val had done his duty by his protégé. He had put into his hands the means of rising in the world, and he had suggested this ambition. Whatever might happen hereafter, he had done his best.

And Dick's mother continued contented also, which was a perpetual wonder to him. She weathered through the winter, though Dick often watched her narrowly, fearing a return to her old vagrant way. When Val's boat disappeared from the river with all the others, she was indeed restless for a little while; but it was, as it happened, just about that time when Val took to visiting the little corner house, and these visits kept her in a visionary absorption, always afraid, yet always glad, when he came. In spring she was again somewhat alarming to

her son, moving so restlessly in the small space they had, and looking out so wistfully from the window, that he trembled to hear some suggestion of fresh wandering. All that she asked, however, was, When did the boats go up for the first time? a question which Dick answered promptly.

"On the 1st of March, mother. I wish it was come," cried Dick, with animation.

"And so do I," she said, with musing eyes fixed on the river; then alarmed, perhaps, lest he should question her, she added has tily, "It is cheery to see the boats." "So it is," said Dick, "especially for you, mother, who go out so seldom. You should take a walk along the banks; it's cheerful always. I don't think you half know how pretty it is."

She shook her head. "I am not one for walks," she said, with a half smile"not for pleasure, Dick. Since I've given up our long tramps, I don't feel to care for moving. I'm getting old, I think."

"Old !" said Dick, cheerily; "it will be time enough to think of that in twenty years."

"Twenty years is a terrible long time," she said, with a little shiver; "I hope I'll be dead and gone long before that."

"I wish you wouldn't speak so, mother."

"Ah, but it's true. My life aint much good to any one," she said. "I am not let to live in my own way, and I can't live in any other. If God would take me, it would be for the best. Then I might have another chance."

"Mother, you break my heart," cried Dick, with a face full of anxiety, throwing away his tools, and coming up to her. "Do you mean that it is I that won't let you live your own way?"

"I don't blame nobody but my

self-no; you've been a good boy

a very good boy-to me," she cried; "better, a long way, than I've been to you."

"Mother," said the lad, laying his hand on her shoulder, his face flushing with emotion, "if it's hard upon you like this-if you want to start off again—”

"No, I don't, I don't," she said with suppressed passion; then falling back into her old dreamy tone"So the boats go up on the 1st of March? and that's Monday. To see 'em makes the river cheery. I'm a little down with the winter and all; but as soon as I see 'em, I'll be all right."

"Please God, mother," said pious Dick, going back to his carving. He was satisfied, but yet he was startled. For, after all, why should she care so much about the boats?

66

This 1st of March inaugurated Val's last summer on the river-at least, on this part of the river, for he had still Oxford and its triumphs in prospect. That summer half" was his last in Eton, and naturally he made the most of it. Val had, as people say, "done very well" at school. He was not a brilliant success, but still he had done very well, and his name in the school list gave his grandparents great pleasure. Lord Eskside kept a copy of that little brochure on his library table, and would finger it half consciously many a time when some county magnate was interviewing the old lord. Val's name appeared in it like this: * Ross, (5) 7. Now this was not anything like the stars and ribbons of the name next above his, which was B * Robinson, (19)a; for I do not mean to pretend that he was very studious, or had much chance of being in the Select for the Newcastle Scholarship (indeed he missed this distinction, though he went in for it gallantly, without being, however, much dis

appointed by his failure). To be sure, I have it all my own way in recording what Val did at Eton, since nobody is likely nowadays, without hard labour in the way of looking up old lists, to be in a position to contradict me. But he had the privilege of writing his letters upon paper bearing the mystic monogram of Pop.-i.e., he was a member of Eton Society, which was a sure test of his popularity; and he was privileged in consequence to walk about with a cane, and to take part in debates on very abstruse subjects (I am not quite sure which privilege is thought the most important), and received full recognition as "a swell," a title which, I am happy to say, bears no vulgar interpretation at Eton, as meaning either rank or riches. And he was a very sublime sight to see on the 4th of June, the great Eton holiday, both in the morning, when he appeared in school in court dress-breeches and black silk stockings-and delivered one of those "Speeches" with which Eton upon that day delights such members of the fashionable world as can spare a summer morning out of the important business of the season; and in the evening, when he turned out in still more gorgeous array, stroke of the best boat on the river, and a greater personage than it is easy for a grown-up and sober-minded imagination to conceive.

It happened that this particular year Mr Pringle was in London upon some business or other, and had brought his daughter Violet with him to see the world. Vi was seventeen, and being an only daughter, and the chief delight of her parents' hearts, and pride of her brothers', big and little, was already "out," though many people shook their heads at Mrs Pringle's precipitancy in producing her daughter. Violet's hair was somewhat darker now that it

was turned up, but showed the pale golden hue of her childhood still in the locks which, when the wind blew upon her, would shake themselves out in little rings over her ears and round her pretty forehead. Her eyes were as dark and liquid as they had been when she was a child, with a wistful look in them, which was somewhat surprising, considering how entirely happy a life she had led from her earliest breath, surrounded with special love and fondness; but so it was, account for it who will. Those eyes that shone out of her happy youthful face were surely conscious of some trouble, which, as it did not exist in the present, must be to come, and which, with every pretty look, she besought and entreated you to ward off from her, to help her through. But a happy little maiden was Vi, looking through those pretty eyes, surprised and sweet, at London-tripping everywhere by her proud father's side, with her hand on his arm, looking at the fine pictures, looking at the fine people and the fine horses in the Park, and going over the sights as innocent country people do when such a happy chance as a child to take about happens to them. Some one suggested to Mr Pringle the fact of the Eton celebration during this pleasant course of dissipation, and Vi's eyes lighted up with a sweet glow of pleasure beyond words when it was finally decided that they were to go. They went to "Speeches" in the morningthat august ceremonial-and heard Val speak, and a great many more. Violet confined her interest to the modern languages which she understood; but Mr Pringle felt it incumbent upon him to look amused at the jokes in Greek, which, I fear, the poor gentleman in reality knew little more about than Vi did. But the crowning glory of the morning was that Val in his "speaking