of his
talents. The result was that Edgar not only acquitted himself
brilliantly in his studies, but progressed well in his verse-making,
which though, since Mr. Allan's prohibition, it had been kept secret in
his home, was freely acknowledged to teacher and school-fellows.

By his class-mates he was deemed a wonder. He was so easily first among
them in everything--in the simple athletics with which they were
familiar, as well as in studies--and his talent for rhyming and drawing
seemed to set him upon a sort of pedestal.

In the first blush of triumph these little successes gave him, young
Edgar's head was in a fair way to be turned. He saw himself (in fancy)
the leader, the popular favorite of the whole school. Indeed, he
flattered himself he had leaped at a single bound to this position at
the moment, almost, of his entrance. But he soon began to see that he
was mistaken. While he was conscious of the unconcealed admiration of
most, and the ill-concealed envy of a few of the boys, of his mental and
physical abilities, he began, as time went on, to suspect--then to be
sure--that for some reason that baffled all his ingenuity to fathom, he
was not accorded the position in the school that was the natural reward
for superiority of endowment and performance. This place was filled
instead by Nat Howard, a boy who, he told himself, he was without the
slightest vanity bound to see was distinctly second to him in every way.

He noticed that whatever Nat proposed was invariably done, so that he
was forced either to follow where he should have led, or be left out of
everything. Often when he joined the boys listening with interest to
Nat's heavy jokes and talk, a silence would fall upon the company, which
in a short while would break up--the boys going off in twos and threes,
leaving him to his own society or that of a small minority composed of
two or three boys for the most part younger than himself, who in spite
of the popular taste for Nat, preferred him and were captivated by his
clever accomplishments.

That there was some reason why he was thus shut out from personal
intimacy by school-mates who acknowledged and admired his powers he felt
sure, and he was determined to ferrit it out. In the meantime his heart,
always peculiarly responsive to affection, answered with warmth to the
devotion of the small coterie who were independent enough to swear
fealty to him. He helped them with their lessons, initiated them into
th