y to put your mind on some body or something else, may be
you wouldn't remember that you are at all unlike other people. I know
mamma and Auntie Lincoln talk so about you very often when they are
together; but I didn't tell you about Archie. You see, I've found out
where he lives--in that hut that you can see from the library window,
and he's the boy that we are to visit some day, dear Willie;" and Kittie
fondled her deformed cousin, smoothing down the obtrusive hump, as if it
were a graceful and comely thing.

CHAPTER III.

One little bit of candle, and a few old school-books, and a mind
swelling with big desires after knowledge, were beside the small window,
long after the midnight hour had struck and the noisy city was hushed
into a comparative calm. It did not signify that the bowed frame was
wearied by a day of physical toil, or that the aching head pleaded for
"tired nature's sweet restorer," or that a voice from the outer room
came often to his ear, with the petition that he would no longer rob
himself of his needful rest; there were new and holy impulses that
refused to be put aside, and hungerings and thirstings that must be
satisfied, and not until the candle gave out its last flicker did
Archibald Mackie spare himself the pittance of slumber that was to
prepare him for another toilsome day. Even in his fitful and nervous
sleep was he mentally solving some abstruse problem, or following out
some philosophical train of reasoning, while all the time in his dreams
the strange lady would urge him onward in his tasks, smiling upon him
with the sweet and gentle face. Forgetful of the simple hovel and its
uncouth accompaniments, unmindful of the deformed figure, and the
tattered raiment, and the taunts and jeers of an unfeeling multitude,
the poor boy reveled amid visions of knowledge, and wisdom, and beauty,
and love, as happy as if an angel form were resting where the hideous
body lay.

The morning beams struggled feebly in at the little window as Archie
tore himself from his pillow, again to apply himself to his books. It
was such a wonder to him that he could for so long a period have cast
them away for less satisfying pleasures. The bright dawn, too, was so
filled with peace and purity, and he had hitherto dozed it off, never
thinking that he had lost the most precious part of his existence. The
air came in so refreshingly upon his brow, and the open space had not
one revolting object to distract him