onclusion that his
best plan--nay, his only plan in present circumstances--was to
accommodate himself to them, and to do his very best in his new calling.
Almost unconsciously, he set Hans before him as a suitable example, and
dusted the row of books under this influence in a creditable manner.

His experiences for the evening were new and strange. Now an
undergraduate entered for the Epistles of Casaubon or the Paraphrases of
Erasmus; now a portly citizen demanded the Mirrour of Magistrates; a
labouring man asked for the Shepherd's Calendar; a schoolmaster required
a dozen horn-books, and a lady wanted a handsomely-bound Communion Book.
Psalters, at two shillings each; grammars, from sixpence to a shilling;
Speed's Chronicle at fifty shillings, a map of England at thirty, the
Life of Sir Philip Sidney at fourpence, a "paper book" at sixteen pence,
an Italian Dictionary at fifteen shillings--classics, song-books,
prayer-books, chronicles, law-books--Aubrey learned to handle them all,
and to repeat their prices glibly, in a style which astonished himself.
At the end of a week, Mr Whitstable told him, in his usual grave and
rather curt manner, that if he would go on as he had begun, he should be
satisfied with him.

The going on as he had begun was precisely the difficulty with Aubrey.
To do some magnificent deed by a sudden spurt of heroism, or behave
angelically for a day, might be possible to him; but that quiet daily
fulfilment of uninteresting duties--that patient continuance in
well-doing, which seemed as if it came naturally to Hans, was to Aubrey
Louvaine the hardest thing on earth. Had the lesson been a little less
sharp, humanly speaking, he would have failed. But Aubrey's conscience
had been startled into life, and he was beginning to see that it would
be too little profit to gain the whole world, if in so doing he lost his
own soul, which was himself. Men are apt to look on their souls not as
themselves, but as a sort of sacred possession, a rich jewel to be worn
on Sundays, and carefully put up in cotton-wool for the rest of the
week--of immense value, theoretically, of course, yet not at all the
same thing as the "_me_" which is the centre of sensation to each one,
and for which every man will give all that he hath. The mountain was
terribly steep, but Aubrey climbed it--only God knew with how much
inward suffering, and with how many fervent prayers. The Aubrey who
sold Mr Whitstable's books that spri