s of which she was kept by the ceaseless
calls of the invalid. Amelia bore her harshness quite gently; smoothed
the uneasy pillow; was always ready with a soft answer to the watchful,
querulous voice; soothed the sufferer with words of hope, such as her
pious simple heart could best feel and utter, and closed the eyes that
had once looked so tenderly upon her.

Then all her time and tenderness were devoted to the consolation and
comfort of the bereaved old father, who was stunned by the blow which
had befallen him, and stood utterly alone in the world. His wife, his
honour, his fortune, everything he loved best had fallen away from him.
There was only Amelia to stand by and support with her gentle arms the
tottering, heart-broken old man. We are not going to write the history:
it would be too dreary and stupid. I can see Vanity Fair yawning over
it d'avance.

One day as the young gentlemen were assembled in the study at the Rev.
Mr. Veal's, and the domestic chaplain to the Right Honourable the Earl
of Bareacres was spouting away as usual, a smart carriage drove up to
the door decorated with the statue of Athene, and two gentlemen stepped
out. The young Masters Bangles rushed to the window with a vague
notion that their father might have arrived from Bombay. The great
hulking scholar of three-and-twenty, who was crying secretly over a
passage of Eutropius, flattened his neglected nose against the panes
and looked at the drag, as the laquais de place sprang from the box and
let out the persons in the carriage.

"It's a fat one and a thin one," Mr. Bluck said as a thundering knock
came to the door.

Everybody was interested, from the domestic chaplain himself, who hoped
he saw the fathers of some future pupils, down to Master Georgy, glad
of any pretext for laying his book down.

The boy in the shabby livery with the faded copper buttons, who always
thrust himself into the tight coat to open the door, came into the
study and said, "Two gentlemen want to see Master Osborne." The
professor had had a trifling altercation in the morning with that young
gentleman, owing to a difference about the introduction of crackers in
school-time; but his face resumed its habitual expression of bland
courtesy as he said, "Master Osborne, I give you full permission to go
and see your carriage friends--to whom I beg you to convey the
respectful compliments of myself and Mrs. Veal."

Georgy went into the reception-room and saw two