184 LTurnaside Cottage.

ment, but after a week or two she admitted that for
a boy I was very well, and rubbed my shoes and
gave no trouble to speak of ; and since it was the
master’s fancy, I might stop on for her.

So the few bits of furniture in Turnaside Cottage
were sold, and I never entered its door again. No
new tenant came forward to occupy it, and its
little garden became a wilderness, and its rooms
the abode of dirt and desolation. I believe it
was partly the low, damp situation that made me
sickly, for after I had left it I grew amazingly in
size and strength, so that now I am little, if at all,
behind my neighbours in health and vigour. If
this be so, it is perhaps as well that the poor old
cottage stood empty, until at last the roof fell in,
and it is now a crumbling and mossy ruin.

The school for which I applied was not so far off
but that I could get there and back in one day,
with the help of a lift ina neighbour's market-cart ;
and, by Mr. HHurst’s advice, I offered to present
myself for a personal interview with the committee.
To my dismay, they consented ; and I was forth-
with overwhelmed with the sense of my own insig-
nificance of appearance and unreadiness of speech.

“T shall not know what on earth to say,” said I,
dolefully, as [ prepared to set forth in the chill,
ercy dawn of a March morning.