eir names were put on the board
above the shop-door--I always called them Miss Dawson and Miss
Hannah--considered these visits of mine to Mr Peters as the greatest
honour a young man could have; and evidently thought that if after such
privileges, I did not work out my salvation, I was a sort of modern
Judas Iscariot. On the contrary, they shook their heads over my
intercourse with Mr Holdsworth. He had been so kind to me in many ways,
that when I cut into my ham, I hovered over the thought of asking him
to tea in my room, more especially as the annual fair was being held in
Eltham market-place, and the sight of the booths, the merry-go-rounds,
the wild-beast shows, and such country pomps, was (as I thought at
seventeen) very attractive. But when I ventured to allude to my wish in
even distant terms, Miss Hannah caught me up, and spoke of the
sinfulness of such sights, and something about wallowing in the mire,
and then vaulted into France, and spoke evil of the nation, and all who
had ever set foot therein, till, seeing that her anger was
concentrating itself into a point, and that that point was Mr
Holdsworth, I thought it would be better to finish my breakfast, and
make what haste I could out of the sound of her voice. I rather
wondered afterwards to hear her and Miss Dawson counting up their
weekly profits with glee, and saying that a pastry-cook's shop in the
corner of the market-place, in Eltham fair week, was no such bad thing.
However, I never ventured to ask Mr Holdsworth to my lodgings.

There is not much to tell about this first year of mine at Eltham. But
when I was nearly nineteen, and beginning to think of whiskers on my
own account, I came to know cousin Phillis, whose very existence had
been unknown to me till then. Mr Holdsworth and I had been out to
Heathbridge for a day, working hard. Heathbridge was near Hornby, for
our line of railway was above half finished. Of course, a day's outing
was a great thing to tell about in my weekly letters; and I fell to
describing the country--a fault I was not often guilty of. I told my
father of the bogs, all over wild myrtle and soft moss, and shaking
ground over which we had to carry our line; and how Mr Holdsworth and I
had gone for our mid-day meals--for we had to stay here for two days
and a night--to a pretty village hard by, Heathbridge proper; and how I
hoped we should often have to go there, for the shaking, uncertain
ground was puzzling our engineers--one