Tom?' his mother asked, with a
sigh.

But there was no reply as Chatterton's light steps were heard ascending
to the garret where he kept all his old parchments, his charcoal, his
books, and various possessions, all as necessary to him, or indeed more
necessary than his daily bread.

It was in this year of 1769 that Chatterton's hopes had risen on rainbow
coloured wings, when his 'The Ryse of Peyncteyne in England, written by
T. Rowlie, in 1469, for Master Canynge,' had been favourably received by
no less a personage than Horace Walpole. The spring of that year had
been the springtime of Chatterton's fairest hopes. In April a letter
from Mr Walpole fired the boy with the desire to do more than ever with
his strange conceits and imitations of old documents.

If Mr Walpole could be deceived, who might not follow his example?

But that courteous, nay deferential, letter on the receipt of 'The Ryse
of Peyncteyne' was the first of its kind and the last. For now June had
come, and other specimens of Rowley's extraordinary gifts were not even
acknowledged, nor could his repeated requests for the return of the
manuscripts avail, and his heart was full of bitterness and indignation
against everyone.

It is hard to realise that the author of 'AElla' and all the other
fictions was scarcely more than a child; that the boy of one of our
public schools, in the sixth form, is the age of this poor lawyer's
apprentice, whose short life was filled with the dreams and aspirations
of a man while as yet he had scarcely emerged from childhood, and was
but a boy in years.

Bryda Palmer's arrival at Mrs Lambert's house in Dowry Square was
exactly as Chatterton had described it to his mother.

A great wave of desolation had swept over her as she heard the cart
rumble off, and took up her posy of gillyflowers and her small basket as
she obeyed Mrs Lambert's summons to the parlour.

Mrs Lambert looked her down from head to foot, and was apparently
satisfied.

'Take care not to drop the flowers about, if you please,' she said. 'You
can put them in a pot by the grate, but I like no litters made by
flowers or anything else. You may sit down while I talk to you,' Mrs
Lambert added. 'You look very delicate; I hope you are not in a
decline.'

'I am very well, madam. It is only that I have felt the pain of leaving
home a little. I shall soon get used to it; and I am much obliged to you
for taking me in, I will try to please you.'

'I want