ing to
the lad and invited him to her house, where the precocious youth fell
desperately in love with Anne Stent, his schoolfellow's sister, who was
four months his senior. The attachment was discovered and treated with
ridicule. The girl, however, returned the boy's affection and the
passion ran its course after the most approved fashion. The hero was
forbidden the house and the heroine confined to her room. There were
clandestine meetings and clandestine correspondence, in which the
schoolboy found the advantage of his studies in the 'Grand Cyrus.' At
last in 1773 the affair was broken off for the time by the despatch of
James Stephen to Winchester, where one of his Milner uncles boarded him
and sent him to the school. His want of preparation prevented him from
profiting by the teaching, and after the first half year his parents'
inability to pay the bills prevented him from returning. He wrote again
to Miss Stent, but received a cold reply, signifying her obedience to
parental authority. For the next two years he learnt nothing except from
his studies at the circulating library. His mother, sinking under her
burthens, did what she could to direct him, and he repaid her care by
the tenderest devotion. Upon her death he thought for a moment of
suicide. Things were looking black indeed. His elder brother William now
took a bold step. His uncle and godfather, William, who had quarrelled
with the family after the early bankruptcy at Poole, was understood to
be prospering at St. Christopher's. The younger William, who had been
employed in a mercantile office, managed to beg a passage to the West
Indies, and threw himself upon the uncle's protection. The uncle
received the boy kindly, promised to take him into partnership as a
physician, and sent him back by the same ship in order to obtain the
necessary medical training at Aberdeen. He returned just in time. James
had been thinking of volunteering under Washington, and had then
accepted the offer of a 'book-keeper's' place in Jamaica. He afterwards
discovered that a 'book-keeper' was an intermediate between the black
slave-driver and the white overseer, and was doomed to a miserable and
degrading life. It was now settled that he should go with William to
Aberdeen, and study law. He entered at Lincoln's Inn, and looked forward
to practising at St. Christopher's. The uncle refused to extend his
liberality to James; but a student could live at Aberdeen for 20_l._ a
year; the f