like already, though he's only nine months old. Mary would like
to see you, sir, if you would be so kind as to step in; that is, if it's
not troubling you at all, Master Lucian. I suppose you must be getting a
fine scholar now, sir?"

"I am doing pretty well, thank you," said the boy. "I was first in my
form last term."

"Fancy! To think of that! D'you hear, father, what a scholar Master
Lucian be getting?"

"He be a rare grammarian, I'm sure," said the farmer. "You do take after
your father, sir; I always do say that nobody have got such a good
deliverance in the pulpit."

Lucian did not find the Blenheim Orange as good as the cider, but he ate
it with all the appearance of relish, and put another, with thanks, in
his pocket. He thanked the farmer again when he got up to go; and Annie
curtsied and smiled, and wished him good-day, and welcome, kindly.

Lucian heard her saying to her father as he went out what a nice-mannered
young gentleman he was getting, to be sure; and he went on his way,
thinking that Annie was really very pretty, and speculating as to whether
he would have the courage to kiss her, if they met in a dark lane. He was
quite sure she would only laugh, and say, "Oh, Master Lucian!"

For many months he had occasional fits of recollection, both cold and
hot; but the bridge of time, gradually lengthening, made those dreadful
and delicious images grow more and more indistinct, till at last they all
passed into that wonderland which a youth looks back upon in amazement,
not knowing why this used to be a symbol of terror or that of joy. At the
end of each term he would come home and find his father a little more
despondent, and harder to cheer even for a moment; and the wall paper and
the furniture grew more and more dingy and shabby. The two cats, loved
and ancient beasts, that he remembered when he was quite a little boy,
before he went to school, died miserably, one after the other. Old Polly,
the pony, at last fell down in the stable from the weakness of old age,
and had to be killed there; the battered old trap ran no longer along the
well-remembered lanes. There was long meadow grass on the lawn, and the
trained fruit trees on the wall had got quite out of hand. At last, when
Lucian was seventeen, his father was obliged to take him from school; he
could no longer afford the fees. This was the sorry ending of many hopes,
and dreams of a double-first, a fellowship, distinction and glory that
the poo