Interludes / being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses

ailing theology of the district by his mother. The village schoolmaster had also assisted in the completion of his education by teaching him a little bad Latin. He was ultimately sent

ladies declared that "they always thought so;-it was just as they supposed." The novel, however, did not meet with much success, and he then turned to the more lucrative but far less noble occupation of "coaching." He could not be said to be absolutely unintellectual. As he had not profited by the experience of life, so he had not been contaminated by it. He was moral, chiefly in a negative sense, and was not inclin

ularly to his two aged parents, while he himself, partly from h

age, "To think that you should have squandered such large sums of

they are very poor, and

em now," retorted she, "and it is therefo

a little, dry, pale, plain man, with an abstracted and nervous manner, and a voice that had never grown up so as to match even the little body from which it came, but was a sort of cracked treble whisper. Moreover, when Mrs. Porkington wished to speak her mind to her husband, she would recline upon a sofa in an impressive manner, and fix her eyes upon

e advantage of her posi

subject to you, but you immedia

oon have thought of throw

-law. Mr. Candlish had lost the great part of the money he had made by tallow, and by consequence had nothing to give his daughter; but she behaved herself as a woman should whose father might at one time have given her ten thousand pounds. "My papa, my dear, was worth at least ￡40,000 when he retired," was the form in which Mrs. Porkington flung her surviving parent at the head of her husband, and crushed him flat with the missile. To the world at large she spoke of her father as "being at present a gentleman of moderate means." Now, as a gentleman of moder

rs; and, as the long vacation was at hand, it became n

party would be the most beneficial to the young men. The air of the continent, I have always found (Mrs. Porkington had crossed the channel upon one o

ust consider. Many parents have a

here are fifty objections raised at once. Pray, may I ask to what uncomfortable quarter of the

id the Coach, "I th

I have had the honour of being allied with you in marri

r felt it. "Then, my dear," said he mildly

Ultimately she mentioned Babbicombe as being a place she might be induced to regard with favour; the truth being that she had m

t appear that I wish to do a thing, when I have no desire at all upon the subject. Have you noticed, aunt, how invariably Charle

She thought it was very unfair indeed, and showed a domineering spirit very

, which seemed to console him somewhat; and, after a few more skirm