w it I wrote in my largest and
clearest handwriting, _Mrs. B. Amo te_. When the Latin was translated
for her, her gratification was great. At first she was put out by
there being only two Latin words to three English ones, but she got
over the difficulty at last by always reading it thus:--

"A mo te,
I love thee."

My Latin had not advanced much beyond this stage when I began to go to
Mr. Andrewes every day.

Thenceforward I progressed rapidly in my learning. Mr. Andrewes was a
good scholar, and (quite another matter) a good teacher; and I fancy
that I was not wanting in quickness or in willingness to work. But
Latin, and arithmetic, and geography, and the marvellous improvement
he soon made in my handwriting, were small parts indeed of all that I
owe to that good friend of my childhood. I suppose that--other things
being equal--children learn most from those who love them best, and I
soon found out that I was the object of a strangely strong affection
in my new teacher. The chief cause of this I did not then know, and
only learnt when death had put an end, for this life, to our happy
intercourse. But I had a child's complacent appreciation of the fact
that I was a favourite, and on the strength of it I haunted the
Rectory at all hours, confident of a welcome. I turned over the
Rector's books, and culled his flowers, and joined his rides, and made
him tell me stories, and tyrannized over him as over a docile
playfellow in a fashion that astonished many grown-up people who were
awed and repelled by his reserve and eccentricities, and who never
knew his character as I knew it till he could be known no more. But I
fancy that there are not a few worthy men who, shy and reserved, are
only intimately known by the children whom they love.

I may say that not only did I owe much more than mere learning to Mr.
Andrewes, but that my regular lessons were a small part even of his
teaching.

"It always seems to me," he said one day, when my father and I were
together at the Rectory, "that there are two kinds of learning more
neglected than they should be in the education of the young. Religious
knowledge, which, after all, concerns the worthiest part of every man,
and the longest share of his existence (to say nothing of what it has
to do with matters now); and the knowledge of what we call Nature, and
of all the laws which concern our bodies, and rule the conditions of
life in this world. It's a hobby of mine, Mr. D