increased. Three quarters of an
hour were spent in reading some interesting work of travel or
adventure, and then the time was occupied in talking over what they
had read, and in explaining anything which they did not understand;
and as the evenings were now long and dark, the visits to the
schoolmaster soon came to be regarded as a privilege, and proved an
incentive to work to those in the lower classes, only those in the
first place being admitted to them.

Reuben worked hard all through the winter, and made very rapid
progress; the schoolmaster, seeing how eager he was to get on,
doing everything in his power to help him forward, and lending him
books to study at home. One morning in the spring, the squire
looked in at Mrs. Whitney's shop.

"Mrs. Whitney," he said, "I don't know what you are thinking of
doing with that boy of yours. Mr. Shrewsbury gives me an excellent
account of him, and says that he is far and away the cleverest and
most studious of the boys. I like the lad, and owe him a good turn
for having broken in that pony for my daughter; besides, for his
father's sake I should like to help him on. Now, in the first
place, what are you thinking of doing with him?"

"I am sure I am very much obliged to you," Mrs. Whitney said. "I
was thinking, when he gets a little older, of apprenticing him to
some trade, but he is not fourteen yet."

"The best thing you can do, Mrs. Whitney. Let it be some good
trade, where he can use his wits--not a butcher, a baker, or a
tailor, or anything of that sort. I should say an upholsterer, or a
mill wright, or some trade where his intelligence can help him on.
When the time comes I shall be glad to pay his apprentice fees for
him, and perhaps, when you tell me what line he has chosen, a word
from me to one of the tradesmen in Lewes may be a help. In the
meantime, that is not what I have specially come about. Young
Finch, who looks to my garden, is going to leave; and if you like,
your boy can have the place. My gardener knows his business
thoroughly, and the boy can learn under him. I will pay him five
shillings a week. It will break him into work a little, and he is
getting rather old for the school now. I have spoken to Shrewsbury,
and he says that, if the boy is disposed to go on studying in the
evening, he will direct his work and help him on."

"Thank you kindly, sir," Mrs. Whitney said. "I think it will just
be the thing, for a year or so, before he is apprenticed.