r eloquence."

"Good! Will you lend me the volume, sir? and now for it. Listen to me;
one sentence at a time; draw your breath when I do."

The three magpies pricked up their ears again, and, as they listened,
marvelled much.

CHAPTER III.

Could we know by what strange circumstances a man's genius became
prepared for practical success, we should discover that the most
serviceable items in his education were never entered in the bills
which his father paid for it.

At the end of the very first lesson George Morley saw that all the
elocution masters to whose skill he had been consigned were blunderers
in comparison with the basketmaker.

Waife did not puzzle him with scientific theories. All that the great
comedian required of him was to observe and to imitate. Observation,
imitation, lo! the groundwork of all art! the primal elements of all
genius! Not there, indeed to halt, but there ever to commence. What
remains to carry on the intellect to mastery? Two steps,--to reflect,
to reproduce. Observation, imitation, reflection, reproduction. In these
stands a mind complete and consummate, fit to cope with all labour,
achieve all success.

At the end of the first lesson George Morley felt that his cure was
possible. Making an appointment for the next day at the same place, he
came thither stealthily and so on day by day. At the end of a week he
felt that the cure was nearly certain; at the end of a month the cure
was self-evident. He should live to preach the Word. True, that he
practised incessantly in private. Not a moment in his waking hours that
the one thought, one object, was absent from his mind! True, that with
all his patience, all his toil, the obstacle was yet serious, might
never be entirely overcome. Nervous hurry, rapidity of action, vehemence
of feeling, brought back, might at unguarded moments always bring back,
the gasping breath, the emptied lungs, the struggling utterance. But the
relapse, rarer and rarer now with each trial, would be at last scarce
a drawback. "Nay," quoth Waife, "instead of a drawback, become but an
orator, and you will convert a defect into a beauty."

Thus justly sanguine of the accomplishment of his life's chosen object,
the scholar's gratitude to Waife was unspeakable. And seeing the man
daily at last in his own cottage,--Sophy's health restored to her
cheeks, smiles to her lip, and cheered at her light fancy-work beside
her grandsire's elbow-chair, with