50 THE TWO APPRENTICES.

which their nephew made of what seemed to him
the transposed name of his companion, written in
his Prayer-book, “ William Louis Edwards ;” and
which, on being shown to him, he immediately tore
from the book, saying gaily that it was only a joke.
But Williams’s secret was safe, both with Miss
Kendricks and Mr. Isaacs; and, while the youth
did not trouble himself one jot about either the one
or the other, he grew tall and good-looking, and,
though he wore a shop-apron, had not at all the
look of a tradesman about him.

Time went on: the fellow-apprentices agreed
- remarkably well together. Reynolds plodded on
at the quiet drudgery of his business, and Williams
took discursive flights of all kinds. Now he was
deep among gases, and now he was up in the clouds
among the fascinations of the circulating library ;
now he dipped here and there into the Materia
Medica and Dr. Thomas’s Practice of Physic; and
now he laboured for three months in learning to
play the flute. He certainly had a variety of tastes,
if not of talents; and the Osbornes, good people as
they were, saw this as something quite remarkable.
Mrs. Osborne was fascinated with his handsome
figure and gentlemanly bearing, wifh his amusing
conversation, and his variety of little social talents
and accomplishments. She contrasted him, in her
own mind, with the more homely, unassuming
Reynolds. ‘“ Poor Miss Kendricks,” thought she,
“how proud they would be to have a nephew like
ours |”

She was the kindest-hearted woman that ever
_ lived, and she never thought thus without being

touched with compassion for the good, humbly-