the Easter, Summer, and Christmas holidays
in the bosom of his family at Brighton, and that no one connected with
Harrow had ever chanced to see him basking in their smiles. [N.B.--the
names, personal and local, are fictitious.] In the north aisle of Harrow
School Chapel, where departed masters are commemorated, you may search
in vain for any memorial to the Rev. Samuel Sticktoright.

Yet one more curiosity must be named, this time not a Harrow master.
"Polly Arnold" kept a stationer's shop, and, as a child, helping her
grand-mother in the same shop, had sold pens--some added cribs--to Byron
when a boy in the school. Here was a Link of the Past which exactly
suited me, and, if only Polly could have understood the allusion, I
should have said to her--"Ah, did you once see Byron plain?" I happened
to have a sister who, though exceptionally clever and lively, had
absolutely no chronological sense. I took her to see Polly Arnold one
day, when this conversation ensued--"Well, Miss Arnold, I am very glad
to make your acquaintance. I have often heard of you from my brother. He
tells me you remember John Lyon. How very interesting!" [N.B.--John Lyon
founded Harrow School in 1571.] To this tribute Polly replied with much
asperity--"I know I'm getting on in life, Miss, but I'm not quite three
hundred years old yet"--while my sister murmured in my ear--"Who _is_ it
she remembers? I know it's someone who lived a long time ago."

But the name of Arnold, when connected with Harrow, suggests quite
another train of thought. At Easter, 1868, Matthew Arnold came to live
at Harrow, with a view of placing his three boys in the School. The
eldest of the three was the invalid to whom his father referred in a
letter quoted in my first chapter: I was able to show him some little
kindnesses, and thus arose an intimacy with the parents, brothers, and
sisters which I have always regarded as--

"Part of my life's unalterable good."

FOOTNOTE:

[3] "The wood belonged to the Hazeldeans, the furze-land to the
Sticktorights--an old Saxon family if ever there was one." _My Novel_.
Book I.

III

HARROVIANA

"I may have failed, my School may fail;
I tremble, but thus much I dare;
I love her. Let the critics rail,
My brethren and my home are there."
W. CORY.

Everyone who travels by the North Western, or the Great Central, or the
Midland Railway, must be conversa