ed an affection for Godwin;
often had the boy to talk with him of an evening. On one such occasion,
Mr. Rawmarsh opened a desk, took forth a packet of newly printed
leaves, and with a mysterious air silently spread them before the boy's
eyes. In an instant Godwin became aware that he was looking at the
examination papers which a day or two hence would be set before him at
school; he saw and recognised a passage from the book of Virgil which
his class had been reading.

'That is _sub rosa_, you know,' whispered the old printer, with half
averted face.

Godwin shrank away, and could not resume the conversation thus
interrupted. On the following day he went about with a feeling of
guilt. He avoided the sight of Mr. Rawmarsh, for whom he had suddenly
lost all respect, and suffered torments in the thought that he enjoyed
an unfair advantage over his class-mates. The Latin passage happened to
be one which he knew thoroughly well; there was no need, even had he
desired, to 'look it up'; but in sitting down to the examination, he
experienced a sense of shame and self-rebuke. So strong were the
effects of this, that he voluntarily omitted the answer to a certain
important question which he could have 'done' better than any of the
other boys, thus endeavouring to adjust in his conscience the terms of
competition, though in fact no such sacrifice was called for. He came
out at the head of the class, but the triumph had no savour for him,
and for many a year he was subject to a flush of mortification whenever
this incident came back to his mind.

Mr. Rawmarsh was not the only intelligent man who took an interest in
Godwin. In a house which the boy sometimes visited with a
school-fellow, lodged a notable couple named Gunnery the husband about
seventy, the wife five years older; they lived on a pension from a
railway company. Mr. Gunnery was a dabbler in many sciences, but had a
special enthusiasm for geology. Two cabinets of stones and fossils gave
evidence of his zealous travels about the British isles; he had even
written a little hand-book of petrology which was for sale at certain
booksellers' in Twybridge, and probably nowhere else. To him, about
this time, Godwin began to resort, always sure of a welcome; and in the
little uncarpeted room where Mr. Gunnery pursued his investigations
many a fateful lesson was given and received. The teacher understood
the intelligence he had to deal with, and was delighted to convey, by
the