accident that I am now enabled to
give them in their genuine shape. An old school-fellow, whom I have not
seen since the days of syntax, and whose name I had utterly forgotten,
enclosed them to me very lately.

However, such as they are, they were thought in a secluded village as
something extraordinary. The usher himself affected to enjoy them
extremely. They added greatly to my reputation, and what was of more
consequence to me, my invitations to dinner and to tea. Truly, my
half-holidays were no longer my own. I had become an object of
curiosity, and I hope and believe, in many instances, of affection. I
was quite cured of my mendacious propensities, by the pain, the horror,
and the disgust that they had inflicted upon me at my last school. I
invented no more mysteries and improbabilities for myself but my
good-natured friends did it amply for me.

Mrs Cherfeuil asserted she knew scarcely anything about me--indeed,
before I came to her school, she had hardly seen me four times during
the whole space of my existence. She only knew that I was the child of
a lady that accident had thrown in her way, a lady whom she knew but
shortly, but for whom she acquired a friendship as strong as it proved
short; that, from mere sympathy she had been induced to stand godmother
to me; that she had never felt authorised, nor did she inquire into the
particulars of my birth. Of course, there was a mystery attached to it,
but to which she had no clue; however, she knew, that at least on one
side, I came of good, nay, very distinguished parentage. But this, her
departed friend assured her, and that most solemnly, that whoever should
stigmatise me as illegitimate, would do me a grievous wrong.

Here was a subject to be canvassed in a gossiping village! Conjecture
was at its busy work. I was quite satisfied with the place that the
imaginations of my hospitable patrons had given me in the social scale.
Nor in the country only did I experience this friendly feeling; most of
my vacations were spent in town, at the houses of the parents of some of
my schoolfellows. I was now made acquainted with the scenic glories of
the stage. I fought my way through crowds of fools, to see a child
perform the heroic _Coriolanus_, the philosophical _Hamlet_, and the
venerable and magnificent _Lear_. Master Betty was at the height of his
reputation; and the dignified and classical Kemble had, for a time, to
veil his majestic countenance from