been at infinite pains to get into my head all sliding
away, and going I don't know where. I wonder where they _do_ go,
by-the-by?

I hand the first book to my mother. Perhaps it is a grammar, perhaps a
history, or geography. I take a last drowning look at the page as I give
it into her hand, and start off aloud at a racing pace while I have got
it fresh. I trip over a word. Mr. Murdstone looks up. I trip over
another word. Miss Murdstone looks up. I redden, tumble over half a
dozen words and stop. I think my mother would show me the book if she
dared, but she does not dare, and she says softly:

"Oh, Davy, Davy!"

"Now, Clara," says Mr. Murdstone, "be firm with the boy. Don't say, 'Oh,
Davy, Davy!' That's childish. He knows his lesson, or he does not know
it."

"He does _not_ know it," Miss Murdstone interposes awfully.

"I am really afraid he does not," says my mother.

"Then you see, Clara," returns Miss Murdstone, "you should just give
him the book back, and make him know it."

"Yes, certainly," says my mother; "that is what I intend to do, my dear
Jane. Now, Davy, try once more, and don't be stupid."

I obey the first clause of my mother's words by trying once more, but am
not so successful with the second, for I am very stupid. I tumble down
before I get to the old place, at a point where I was all right before,
and stop to think. But I can't think about the lesson. I think of the
number of yards of net in Miss Murdstone's cap, or of the price of Mr.
Murdstone's dressing-gown, or any such ridiculous matter that I have no
business with, and don't want to have anything at all to do with. Mr.
Murdstone makes a movement of impatience which I have been expecting for
a long time. Miss Murdstone does the same. My mother glances
submissively at them, shuts the book, and lays it by, to be worked out
when my other tasks are done.

There is a pile of these tasks very soon, and it swells like a rolling
snowball. The bigger it gets, the more stupid _I_ get. The case is so
hopeless, and I feel that I am wallowing in such a bog of nonsense, that
I give up all idea of getting out, and abandon myself to my fate. The
despairing way in which my mother and I look at each other, as I
blunder on, is truly melancholy. But the greatest effect in these
miserable lessons is when my mother (thinking nobody is observing her)
tries to give me the cue by the motion of her lips. At that instant,
Miss Murdstone, who has been lying in