before he can frolic. Sunlight and air came through
his open windows enough to keep Richard alive and
strong, but not enough yet to make him merry.
He was too solemn, thus, for most of those he met,
but, happily, not for his tutor. Finding Richard
knew ten times as much of English literature as himself,
he became in this department his pupil’s pupil;
and listening to his occasional utterance of a religious
difficulty, had new regions of thought opened in him,
to the deepening and verifying of his nature.
The result for the tutor was that he sought ordination,
in the hope of giving to others what had at length
become real to himself.
Richard gained little distinction at his examinations.
He did well enough, but was too eager after real knowledge
to care about appearing to know.
He made friends, but not many familiar friends.
He sorely missed ministration: it had grown a
necessity of his nature. It was well that the
habit should be broken for a time. For, laden
with consciousness, and not full of God, the soul
will delight in itself as a benefactor, a regnant
giver, the centre of thanks and obligation: and
will thus, with a rampart-mound of self-satisfaction,
dam out the original creative life of its being, the
recognition of which is life eternal. But it grew
upon Richard that, if there be a God, it is the one
business of a man to find him, and that, if he would
find him, he must obey the voice of his conscience.
As to the outward show of the man, Richard’s
carriage was improving. Level intercourse with
men of his own age but more at home in what is called
society, influenced his manners both with and without
his will, while, all the time, he was gathering the
confidence of experience. His rowing, and the
daily run to and from the boats, with other exercises
prescribed by his tutor, strengthened the shoulders
whose early stoop had threatened to return with much
reading. He was fast growing more than presentable.
With the men of his year, his character more than his
faculty had influence.
Old Simon was doing his best for Arthur. He would
not hear of his going back to London, or attempting
anything in the way of work beyond a little in the
garden. He was indeed nowise fit for more.
The blacksmith himself was making progress—the
best parts of him were growing fast. Age was
turning the strength into channels and mill-streams,
which before, wild-foaming, had flooded the meadows.
BARBARA AT HOME.
Barbara’s brother, her father’s twin,
was fast following her mother’s to that somewhere
each of us must learn for himself, no one can learn
from another. While they were in London, he was
in the Isle of Wight with his tutor. His mother
and sister had several times gone to see him, but he
did not show much pleasure in their attentions, and
was certainly happier with his tutor than with any
