had been perpetually occupied with books, reading much and seeing little.  Then he had been at school, but he had seen the dark side of school life—­the side which boys who are known to be very poor generally see; and more than ever he had resorted to study for comfort and relief from outward ills.  Then at last he had been transferred to a serener state in the vicarage of Billingsfield and had grown up rapidly from a schoolboy to a young man; but, as has been said, the feminine element at the vicarage was solely represented by Mrs. Ambrose and the monotony of her maternal society was varied only by the occasional visits of the mild young Mrs. Edward Pewlay.  John Short had indeed a powerful and aspiring imagination, but it would have been impossible even by straining that faculty to its utmost activity to think in the same breath of romance and of Mrs. Ambrose, for even in her youth Mrs. Ambrose had not been precisely a romantic character.  John’s fancy was not stimulated by his surroundings, but it fed upon itself and grew fast enough to acquire an influence over everything he did.  It was not surprising that, when at last chance threw in his way a being who seemed instantly to realise and fulfil his wildest dreams of beauty and feminine fascination, he should have yielded without a struggle to the delicious influence, feeling that henceforth his ideal had taken shape and substance, and had thereby become more than ever the ideal in which he delighted.

He gave her names, a dozen of them every day, christening her after every heroine in fiction and history of whom he had ever read.  But no name seemed to suit her well enough; whereupon he wrote a Greek ode and a Latin epistle to the fair unknown, but omitted to show them to the Reverend Augustin Ambrose, though he was quite certain that they were the best he had ever produced.  Then he began to write a novel, but suddenly recollected that a famous author had written one entitled “No Name,” and as that was the only title he could possibly give to the work he contemplated he of course had no choice but to abandon the work itself.  He wrote more verses, and he dreamed more dreams, and he meanwhile acquired much learning and in process of time realised that he had but a few days longer to stay at Billingsfield.  The Michaelmas term was about to open and he must bid farewell to the hospitable roof and the learned conversation of the good vicar.  But when those last days came he realised that he was leaving the scene of his only dream, and his heart grew sad.

Indeed he loved the old red brick vicarage with its low porch, overgrown with creepers, its fragrant old flower garden, surrounding it on three sides, its gabled roof, its south wall whereon the vicar constantly attempted to train fig trees, maintaining that the climate of England had grown warmer and that he would prove it—­John loved it all, and especially he loved the little study, lined with the books grown familiar to him, and the study door, the door through