which he had seen that lovely face which he firmly believed was to inspire him to do great things and to influence his whole life for ever after.  He would leave the door open and place himself just where he had sat that day, and then he would look suddenly up with beating heart, almost fancying he could again see those violet eyes gazing at him from the dusky passage—­blushing then to himself, like any girl, and burying himself in his book till the fancy was grown too strong and he looked up again.  He had attempted to sketch her face on a bit of paper; but he had no skill and he thrust the drawing into the paper basket, horrified at having made anything so hideous in the effort to represent anything so beautiful, and returned to making odes upon her, and Latin epistles, in which he succeeded much better.

And now the time had come when he must leave all this dreaming, or at least the scene of it, and go to college and win scholarships and renown.  It was hard to go and he showed his regret so plainly that Mrs. Ambrose was touched at what she took for his affection for the place and for herself and for the vicar.  John Short was indeed very grateful to her for all the kindness she had shown him, and to Mr. Ambrose for the learning he had acquired; for John was a fine fellow and never forgot an obligation nor undervalued one.  But when we are very young our hearts are far more easily touched to joy and sadness by the chords and discords of our own dreaming, than by the material doings of the world around us, or by the strong and benevolent interest our elders are good enough to take in us.  We feel grateful to those same elders if we have any good in us, but we are far from feeling a similar interest in them.  We see in our imaginations wonderful pictures, and we hear wonderful words, for everything we dream of partakes of an unknown perfection and completely throws into the shade the inartistic commonplaces of daily life.  As John Short grew older, he often regretted the society of his old tutor and in the frequent absence of important buttons from his raiment he bitterly realised that there was no longer a motherly Mrs. Ambrose to inspect his linen; but when he took leave of them what hurt him most was to turn his back upon the beloved old study, upon the very door through which he had once, and only once, beheld the ideal of his first love dream.

Though the vicar was glad to see the boy started upon what he already regarded as a career of certain victory, he was sorry to lose him, not knowing when he should see him again.  John intended to read through all the vacations until he got his degree.  He might indeed have come down for a day or two at Christmas, but with his very slender resources even so short a pleasure trip was not to be thought of lightly.  It was therefore to be a long separation, so long to look forward to that when John saw the shabby little box which contained, all his worldly goods put up into the back of the vicar’s dogcart, and stood at last in the hall, saying good-bye, he felt as though he was being thrust out into the world never to return again; his heart seemed to rise in his throat, the tears stood in his eyes and he could hardly speak a word.  Even then he thought of that day when he had waked up the sleepy Muggins to take away the beautiful unknown lady.  He felt he must be quick about his leave-taking, or he would break down.