ur good old clergyman can be wrong, and Mr. and Miss Murdstone right,
and that all the angels in Heaven can be destroying angels. Again, if I
move a finger or relax a muscle of my face, Miss Murdstone pokes me with
her prayer-book, and makes my side ache.

Yes, and again, as we walk home, I note some neighbours looking at my
mother and at me, and whispering. Again, as the three go on arm-in-arm,
and I linger behind alone, I follow some of those looks, and wonder if
my mother's step be really not so light as I have seen it, and if the
gaiety of her beauty be really almost worried away. Again, I wonder
whether any of the neighbours call to mind, as I do, how we used to
walk home together, she and I; and I wonder stupidly about that, all the
dreary dismal day.

There had been some talk on occasions of my going to boarding-school.
Mr. and Miss Murdstone had originated it, and my mother had of course
agreed with them. Nothing, however, was concluded on the subject yet.
In the meantime, I learnt lessons at home. Shall I ever forget those
lessons! They were presided over nominally by my mother, but really by
Mr. Murdstone and his sister, who were always present, and found them
a favourable occasion for giving my mother lessons in that miscalled
firmness, which was the bane of both our lives. I believe I was kept
at home for that purpose. I had been apt enough to learn, and willing
enough, when my mother and I had lived alone together. I can faintly
remember learning the alphabet at her knee. To this day, when I look
upon the fat black letters in the primer, the puzzling novelty of their
shapes, and the easy good-nature of O and Q and S, seem to present
themselves again before me as they used to do. But they recall no
feeling of disgust or reluctance. On the contrary, I seem to have walked
along a path of flowers as far as the crocodile-book, and to have been
cheered by the gentleness of my mother's voice and manner all the
way. But these solemn lessons which succeeded those, I remember as the
death-blow of my peace, and a grievous daily drudgery and misery. They
were very long, very numerous, very hard--perfectly unintelligible,
some of them, to me--and I was generally as much bewildered by them as I
believe my poor mother was herself.

Let me remember how it used to be, and bring one morning back again.

I come into the second-best parlour after breakfast, with my books,
and an exercise-book, and a slate. My mother is read