e mysteries of boxing and other manly exercises, went swimming and
gunning with them, and occasionally delighted them by showing them his
poems and the little sketches with which he sometimes illustrated his
manuscript, in the making.

It must be confessed that there was little in these compositions to set
the world afire. They would only be counted remarkable as the work of a
school-boy in his early teens, and were practice work--nothing more.
They served their purpose, then sank into the oblivion which was their
meet destiny. But to Jack Preston, Dick Ambler, Rob Stanard and Rob
Sully, and one or two others, they were master-pieces.

These boys, as well as Edgar, were giving serious attention to their
linen, the care of their hands, and the precise parting of their hair,
just then; and a close observer might often have detected them in the
act of furtively feeling their upper lips with anxious forefinger in the
vain hope of discovering the appearance--if ever so slight--of a downy
growth thereupon. For they, as well as he, were making sheep's eyes at
those wonderful visions in golden locks and jetty locks, with brown eyes
and blue eyes, with fluttering ribbons and snowy pinafores, known as
"Miss Jane Mackenzie's girls," who were the inspiration of most of their
poet-chum's invocations of the muse. The little hymns in praise of the
charms of these girls were generally adorned with pen or pencil sketches
of the fair charmers themselves.

Poor Miss Jane had a sad time of it. As the accomplished principal of a
choice Young Ladies Boarding and Day School, she enjoyed an enviable
position in the politest society in town. Parents of young ladies under
her care congratulated themselves alike upon her strict rule and her
learning, her refinement of manners and conversation and her
distinguished appearance. She was tall and stately and in her decorous
garb of black silk that could have "stood alone," and an elegant cap of
"real" lace with lavender ribbons softening the precise waves of her
iron-grey hair, she made a most impressive figure--one that would have
inspired with profound respect any male creature living saving that
incorrigible non-respecter of persons and personages, especially of lady
principals--the Boy. For the "forming" of young ladies, Miss Jane had a
positive forte, but the genus boy was an unknown quantity to her, and
worse--he was a positive terror. For one of them to invade the sacred
precincts of her sch