LONG AGO. FORTUNATELY, in this free country, people may differ in opinion without any very serious consequences beyond supernatural redness of face, superhuman vehemence of speech, superfluous violence of language, and supererogatory expressions of derision; and therefore I do not much care if the majority of readers should think it was not so very long ago. For my part, when a man has no hair on the top of his head; when that which he has straggling over his ears and about his bump of philoprogenitiveness would be creditable to the grayest of badgers; when his eyes are sunken in an agglomeration of puckers, and dim withal; when his chin has doubled itself, like the supposititious capital of an advertising bank, in an incredibly short space of time; when his life is a burden by reason of bunions; when he hasn't a single sound tooth in any part of his head; when he suffers agonies of rheumatism; when the end of his nose is covered with pimples (the fatal consequence of drinking nothing but water); and when he is a great-uncle before he is forty, I really do maintain that he may consider the days of his youth as long ago. I speak of the time when I was fifteen.

The scene is laid in the country; in the county of Kent; in fact, not a long way from Gravesend; it would be as well, perhaps, to say at once in Gravesend. The dramatis persona I may describe generally as a captain in the army, a young ladies' 'boarding establishment,' and your humble servant. Now, it has just struck me that long ago the last-mentioned personage acted unwittingly the very undignified part of a blind in the matter of the gallant officer's proceedings with respect to the 'boarding establishment;' and I should like to have your opinion. But, first, I must shew how I became connected with the establishment.' I was not an inhabitant of Gravesend; I was not even a native of Kent. To London belongs the honour of having been my birthplace; and though the sound of Bow-bells did not reach my baby-ears, and add their din to my infantine screams, I was to all intents and purposes, with the exception of an attachment which no lapse of time can alter for the letter h, a Cockney. I was the only son of a widowed mother, but I had sisters-I thank Heaven that I had sisters. They, of course, required my mother's more constant attention, and her income was, to say the most of it, limited-extremely limited; so that when

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my midsummer holidays came round, and did not coincide with my sisters', I was obliged to be sent into the country alone. For I went to a London school in the heart of the city, where, under gloomy cloisters paved with flagstones, amidst smoke and noise, with a free circulation of bad smells, and a confined circulation of air, we daily played those glorious games which consist chiefly in the big boys throwing the little boys down on the backs of their heads on the flags, and where the chances were so many in favour of our growing pale and sickly and old before our time, that it was considered absolutely necessary by the medical men that we should spend our vacation near the fields. And thus it was that I went to Gravesend: it was sufficiently close to London to allow of my mother's coming down frequently to see how I fared; it was sufficiently far from London to give me the benefit of country air; and it was sufficiently full of popular (not to say vulgar) amusements to prevent my feeling dull. But who at the age of fifteen years thought of the vulgarity of Windmill Hill, of Rosherville Gardens, or of the Elysium where one gathered fruit and water-cresses at Springhead? If anybody will be good enough to point out that boy, I will do my best, even in my present miserable condition, to thrash him. My mother's chief anxiety was of course to place me where I was not likely to get into mischief; so she made the acquaintance of a lady who kept a young ladies' boarding-school, and arranged with her that I should live there as one of the family. It strikes me forcibly that my mother had never been to a boarding-school, or she would as soon have thought of plunging me straight into Charybdis' mouth, to keep me away from Scylla.

First, there was the Well, I know you I shouldn't do it and tell and it looks mean to say it wasn't your fault, and they would do it, and you didn't care much about it; but then truth very often does look mean; it is mendacity, I have heard cynics say, which presents the fashionable exterior. So I shall tell the truth, and shame the elderly gentleman. They did do it, and they would do it, particularly the elder ones. There was some excuse for them, I admit; for it is my sad fate, ladies and gentlemen, to be undersized; and at the age of fifteen, I was of particularly small stature, and didn't look nearly so aged as I was. Moreover, I had-may I say without rudeness?-the misfortune to look exactly like a girl (don't suppose I look now like an old woman; things haven't come to

quite that pass), for which my school-fellows paid me out both by verbal taunt and fistic application, though I am sure nobody regretted more than myself that I should have been born before the fates had made up their minds to let me appear what I really was. Again, old Mrs Frump, who kept the establishment,' herself set the example, for as soon as I entered the breakfast-room on the first morning after my arrival, she called me to sit by her, and kissed me publicly; and the more forward of the young ladies not unnaturally imagining that I should like something to take the taste off my lips, took the earliest opportunity after breakfast of following Mrs Frump's example privately.

They led up to it after this fashion. Clara asked me if I had any sisters, and as she called me dear,' I answered rather sulkily: 'Yes, many.' Then Laura said: 'Oh, aren't they fond of you?' to which I replied, with the air of one conscious of his merits: I should rather think they were.' Thereupon, Lucy wished she had a brother; oh, she was sure she should love him so. Upon this, Emily supposed they were always kissing me, and I assented to the hypothesis with the slight modification Pretty well.' Hereupon, Blanche demanded of me whether I liked it; and upon my rejoining that I didn't mind, Clara caught me round the waist, and said: 'Oh, you little rogue, you know you like it;' | and proceeded to assume several privileges. The rest immediately followed her lead, and in a short space of time all traces of Mrs Frump's motherly salute were obliterated. Pooh!' says somebody; all that was harmless enough; I don't see any mischief in that it is done in all light-hearted, however well-regulated families. I've been kissed myself, by George! and tickled too, when I was about fifteen, by young ladies a few years older and many inches taller than myself.' My dear sir, you speak, as the Vulgate hath it, like a book. I perfectly agree with you, there was no mischief in that. But, pray, was there any mischief in introducing contraband of war into Mrs Frump's establishment? For Mrs Frump, like all schoolmistresses, was at daggers drawn with the traders in washes and cosmetics (she got her own secretly from London), and dyes, and sweetmeats, and French novels (she did not understand the language), and modistes (who sell many false helps to beauty besides wreaths and other arsenical preparations), and did her best, I must say, to keep the young ladies committed to her charge in that state of ugliness to which it had pleased Providence to call them. But after I had got upon the agreeable footing already alluded to, confidences were soon showered upon me, and young hearts were opened to me. It was their school-time, it was my holidays; consequently, I went out and came in as I pleased, with the proviso, that I was never to be in later than nine in the evening, unless I could bring with me a voucher of sufficient age or position to satisfy the scruples of Mrs Frump. Now, as there were several day-girls whose parents lived in the town, and with whom I became speedily acquainted, there was no great difficulty, I found, in confining the days upon which I was home at nine to two in the week at most; and as my escort upon other occasions was generally some easy-going young fellow of twenty or thereabouts, I found no great obstacle in the way of my performing the whole of the thousand-and-one small commissions which had been intrusted to me, such as dropping suspicious-looking notes, with several tiny drops of wax surrounding the seal proper, unseen into the postoffice; calling at Madame Chose's for a little parcel addressed to Miss Clara Capillary; gathering together at the chemist's innumerable packages containing everything that is nice from scents to sal-volatile; asking at the jeweller's private door for something in a box (I feel pretty certain it was a ring) for Miss Lucy Lilywater, and at the hairdresser's for a packet

(I guessed it was what they call the Leucochiropœon soap) for Miss Julia Ruddyfinger. Indeed, my escort was not unfrequently an accomplice, and parted from me with a menace, that if I allowed 'Old Mother Frump' to see me give Laura Mittins the note he had given me for her, he would treat me as Apollo treated Marsyas, which I knew, from my researches in the classical dictionary, was a polite way of threatening to skin me alive.

Now, wasn't this mischief? I thought it great fun at the time; but now that I am so subject to rheumatism, it strikes me it was aiding and abetting the young ladies in keeping up a clandestine correspondence, and generally in counteracting, to the best of their ability, the good results which might have been expected from the Frumpian method of education. Moreover, of course, we sinners were obliged to take into our pay and confidence the servant who opened the door to me, for I was laden like a young porter: not that she had the very least objection; I believe she would have done it for nothing, such is the natural antipathy which exists upon the part of all servants at schools towards 'missus,' and such is the innate love for intrigue and innate hatred for constituted authority implanted in the female domestic. Nevertheless, I cannot but think, now that I have become prematurely bald, that mischief is even a light term to apply to our course of conduct. I am not at all sure that it was not wicked; but whether we call it mischief or not, it didn't stop here. Some of the elder young ladies were occasionally allowed on half-holidays, or on particularly fine evenings, to walk out with me, instead of with the school, in that double-file fashion which is so lowering to the spirits, and which caused a would-be wag to remark that they were 'like a flute, because they went two-two-two.' They were ostensibly to take care of me; and certainly, to see their demure faces as long as they were within ken of Mrs Frump's eye, you might have thought they had some idea of performing that duty; but it makes me laugh now to think of it-to take care of me! Why, who encouraged me in buying (upon credit) light-coloured kid-gloves, and essences, and a souplejack cane with a gold top? Clara. She said I looked so nice, I ought to have them (a mode of reasoning not uncommon among young ladies of eighteen); and she liked to walk with me under those circumstances in the public gardens. Ah! but who stared when the bill came in? Why, Mrs Frump. And who lectured me so kindly, but so seriously and entreatingly? Why, she who could ill afford to pay for them-my mother. And who urged me to smoke cigars upon the promenade? That unsophisticatedlooking Lucy; she laughed and giggled, and said I was a darling. And who supported my motion that we should adjourn to the confectioner's upon the Terrace Pier, and expend our allowances in ices and sponge-cakes? Why, every mother's daughter of them. And I must do them the justice to say, that would my boyish gallantry have allowed it, they would have cheerfully defrayed my portion of the expenses from their own slender purses; just as I have heard that young women who keep company with full privates are in the habit of defraying the expenses of their gallant protectors. All this I think tended to mischief.

But I fell into greater mischief than this-in fact, I fell in love. That, I think, was mischief greater than my mother had ever contemplated anywhere for me; for, as I have said, I was only fifteen, and-woe is me that I must acknowledge it!-under-sized. I must not be understood, if you please, to scoff at love; indeed, I know

Of no more subtle master under Heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to subdue the base in man,

But teach high thoughts, and amiable words, And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes a man. But then I think one should have left school, and should have reached at least the age of twenty, or, at any rate, should find a maid somewhere about his own age. As for me, it was not with Clara, or Lucy, or any of my kissing acquaintances that I fell in love -it was with the English governess. She was only about ten years older than I was, but my present mature judgment assures me that was too much. If time has treated her as it has me, such hair as she has left must be snowy white; she must be toothless, deaf as a post, and wholly given over to the whims and vagaries of rheumatism. On the whole, then, I am glad that Captain Percy cut me out, and that I did not lead Miss Lindley Murray to the altar. I'll maintain, however, that I never saw a face that pleased me more. I don't know what it was like, for it changed about so, it bewildered me; and you would have been obliged to take ten thousand photograms, and then fancy what they would all look like blended into one harmonious whole, if you wanted to get her portrait. The colour of her eyes you had better guess, for I haven't the least idea: whenever I looked into them--and that was very often-they seemed to be not quite sure what colour they should assume, and they flashed, and twinkled, and softened till mine were dazzled, and began to water, so I gave over attempting to divine the colour. Then her hair, though it was always soft and fine, never had quite the same hue, and never quite the same 'set;' one day it was perfectly straight, another it was wavy; now a little curl escaped upon one side, and refused to be confined, and now upon the other; but there was one thing which was always the same-a parting present from the small-pox. That much-abused disease had treated her with the utmost consideration; it was hardly to be expected that a disease of such taste could abandon the charming quarters he had inhabited without leaving some memento of himself, and his regret at being obliged to depart this memento consisted in a little white spot, exactly like a dimple, just below the tip of the nose. The effect was ravishing, for her nose (I wish there were another name for it) was of the retroussé order; and that I might have been able to touch that dimple, I would willingly have undergone transformation into a cambric pocket-handkerchief.

But the desired contact was to be attained in a more simple manner. I had worshipped Miss Murray at a distance, for she never treated me after the sisterly fashion of the young ladies, or the motherly of Mrs Frump, when one evening I found myself alone with her in the drawing-room. She was at the piano; she talked kindly with me as usual, and played airs for which I asked. At last I requested her to sing Long, long ago. I forget now whether it is a pretty song or not, but I am under the impression that at the time of which I am writing it was very much in vogue; at anyrate, it sounded very delicious to me from Miss Murray's lips. She sang two verses, when I perceived her voice tremble; suddenly she dropped her head upon her hands on the keys, and I could hear her sobbing. A boy is but an awkward consoler, and nothing makes him so timid as sorrow; however, I stole towards poor Miss Murray, put my arm softly round her neck, and kissed her on the shoulder: her face was hidden from me. For a moment or two, she did not move; then suddenly turning round, she threw her arins about me, drew me to her close, and kissed me over and over again.

'What is the matter, dear Miss Murray?' said I. 'Never mind, dear,' said she, smiling and drying her eyes. Only once upon a time I had a little brother, who would have been just your age had he lived, and

you and the song together put me in mind of him again. There, that will do; now let us talk about something else.' And she questioned me gaily about my doings that day.

After this evening, Miss Murray and I grew daily more and more friendly; I used to call her early in the morning, and we used to take walks together before breakfast, for her duties, poor girl, were so many that I could not obtain her company at any other time. I became a close acquaintance of the dimple, too, without becoming a pocket-handkerchief. But soon came Captain Percy on the scene, and thus it happened:

I was one day looking with great interest at the embarkation of troops for India, and with great admiration at the officer who was superintending it. He observed my evident interest, beckoned me to him, put his hand on my shoulder, and said: 'Well, my little lad, you seem to take a great deal of notice of us. Did you never see troops embark before?'

'Never, sir,' said I; for though he spoke kindly and cordially, there was an authoritative sound in his voice, and I always said 'sir' (just at first) to authorities.

'Perhaps you'd like to go on board, and see how the fellows are stowed?'

'Oh! indeed I should,' said I expectantly.

'Very well, then, stay by me, and we'll see what can be done.'

Didn't I feel proud as I stood by the gallant captain, who was six feet high if he was an inch! I should have said he was about two-and-thirty, a fine-looking fellow, with dark close-curling hair, straight nose, and gray eyes. And he was to be my rival; the rival of four feet and a half, light brown hair, no particular nose, and blue eyes! Poor four feet and a half! And now the men had all passed, and we got into the boat to row to the ship. As soon as we reached the ship, forgetful of manners, I rushed at the ropes, swung myself up, and had just finished touching my cap respectfully to the quarter-deck, when the captain's hand was laid once more upon my shoulder, and his sonorous voice said kindly, but reprovingly: 'I say, young fellow, don't you read in some Latin book at school seniores priores, eh?' I could have sunk into the water through the planks. Oh, thought I, if we only had masters like this gentleman, how we should get on in everything! There was such a manly tone in his quiet reproach. What a joyous afternoon I spent, lunching off biscuits, and butter, and sherry, talking to the grinning black cook, inspecting the soldiers' stowage, and climbing up the rigging. I only made a fool of myself once, which is saying a great deal, for I was born with a tendency to melancholy reflections, than which nothing is more conducive to what men of the world (correctly, I doubt not) call folly. It was while the roll was being called. Captain Percy accused me of having tears in my eyes. This accusation I repelled with indignation, but the tremor of my voice betrayed me. I was forced to explain, and when I said with a sob: 'I couldn't help thinking how few of these fine fellows would come home again,' Captain Percy, and Major Brown, and Lieutenant Jones exchanged glances of blank astonishment. Major Brown (who was going out with the troops himself) was seriously angry; told me he had been out once before, and come home all right; didn't see why he shouldn't do so again, and gave his opinion in plain, not to say profane language, that I was a (profane adjective) little fool.' I did not answer that my tearful emotions were not aroused by a prospect of the loss of Major Brown, but I might have so answered truthfully. Lieutenant Jones, after his kind, gave me a poke in the ribs with his thumb, made a peculiar sound, as though he were driving horses, and suggested brandy and water. But Captain Percy, when the roll was over, took me aside, put his

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arm round my neck, and said, as a father might have said to a son: 'My boy, my boy, you must check this sort of thing, or you'll never get through the world; you may have too soft as well as too hard a heart, and the former is more likely to get you into trouble than the latter. Mind you, my good fellow, I don't advise you to harden your heart, but keep the softness until it is needed. You'll have plenty of opportunity, depend upon it.' And then he asked me where I lived, and said he would walk home with me, and get Mrs Frump's leave for me to go over and see him at Chatham.

When we reached the establishment,' I shewed him into the drawing-room, and who should be there but Miss Murray, practising. She informed us that Mrs Frump was out; and my handsome acquaintance prevailed upon her, by some fascinations which I could not at the time understand, and which I have never been able to acquire, to continue her playing. He stood by her, with his foraging-cap in his hand, and ultimately sung us a song; then he took his leave, promising before long to write and ask Mrs Frump's permission for me to visit his quarters. Miss Murray was evidently charmed with him, for she took a studiedly formal farewell of him, which, young as I was, I perfectly understood, and then stood looking after us from the window, as I walked down with him to the stables, where his horse was at bait. On our way, he sounded me, and soon elicited from me that I was in the habit of walking at a certain hour, generally in a certain same direction, with Miss Murray; and as I live, the very next morning he met us. He was relieved from all embarrassment by the cordial manner in which I ran up to him and greeted him; but not so Miss Murray: she blushed and stammered, and was anything but entertaining, I thought; and I lagged sulkily behind; but Captain Percy seemed to be rather glad than otherwise that I did so, and he talked-nonsense, I dare say, but still he talked-for two. And this sort of thing lasted for more than a fortnight: every day, nearly-more than every other day-we met Captain Percy in our walks; we all thought it very extraordinary-at least we said we did-but still it continually happened. I was rather piqued that he hadn't written to Old Mother Frump' on my account, and with the frankness of youth, I one morning reminded him of his promise. He declared he would write that very day, and he did. Mrs Frump inquired of me how I made his acquaintance, and I told her categorically. She asked if I had ever seen him since, and I mentioned that I occasionally met him out walking of a morning. 'Mother' Frump asked with Miss Murray,' and I answered frankly 'yes;' whereupon that elderly instructress coughed dryly, though she had never complained of cold, and proceeded to enunciate curious notions with respect to the British army. I gathered from what she said that there was a paucity of drummer-boys in that gallant body, and that she had been informed, on good authority, that the officers had received orders to entrap any likely lads that came in their way, and that Captain Percy designed to make me a drummer in his regiment. She was quite sure, she said, that my mamma would not like that, and she should therefore write to Captain Percy, decline his invitation to me, and explain her reasons why. I combated her absurd notions as well as I could, but it was of no avail; she did write, and did explain; and as with her rested the supply of ready money, without which I had no idea at the time that Chatham could be reached, I was forced to acquiesce. Moreover, I should have been deterred from trying to walk, from the knowledge I had of Captain Percy's dislike to anything like insubordination. I caught a sound, also, when I was retiring to rest, of high words between her and Miss Murray; and whether that sound were connected with a subsequent unpleasant circumstance or not, I can't say,

but next morning Miss Murray, when I called her, came to the door in a charming state of dishabille, kissed me affectionately, but said that she could not go out with me, and that I must be a good boy, and not ask the reason why. So out I went alone. I met the noble captain: he was very much hurt, I could see, but whether at Mrs Frump's absurdity on my account, or at the absence of Miss Murray, I will not take upon myself to say. So the old lady was afraid we were going to make a drummer of you, my boy, was she?" said he. We don't take your sort for drummers;' and he excused himself from walking in my direction, but gave me a note addressed to Miss Murray, charging me strictly not to let any one see me deliver it. It seemed to me at the time strange that he should have concluded Miss Murray would not be with me, but at my present time of life I am not so much surprised at his having so good a nose for a rat. I was not particularly pleased with his very clear manifestation of desire for Miss Murray's company rather than mine; but he had given me a commission, and there is no one more honourable than a school-boy in the execution of anything like clandestine commissions. I delivered the note. Miss Murray read it, kissed it, and wept. I ground my teeth, for I saw that she cared more for him than for me; I even began to abuse him, but she told me to hold my tongue, or she wouldn't love me. That I could not bear to contemplate, so I smothered my wrath, and went out as usual every morning for my walk, every morning met Captain Percy, every morning was greeted with cold commonplaces, and every morning went back, grief at my heart, and wrath in my liver, the ignominious bearer of a letter to Miss Murray. But it did not last long; my holidays were soon over. I took an affectionate farewell of my fair instructresses in mischief, and was not long forgetting them in the bustle of school. What was the upshot of Miss Murray's correspondence with Captain Percy, I never knew, for my mother was not so much pleased with the results of my sojourning chez Frump as to send me there again; and though Miss Murray once or twice visited me at school, and caused jealousy in the hearts of many a sixth-form boy by publicly kissing me in the playground, I could not get her to talk upon the subject of Captain Percy. Still I put it confidently to an intelligent public, whether I am not right in the misgiving which has lately come over me, that I acted the undignified part of a go-between.

WORK.

WORK is divine. No doubt; but not more than Rest is. Do not let us be called off from a quiet wholesome estimate of work by any big epithet which, as likely as not, suggests an idea of it at variance with dry daily experience. There is nothing more true than the first three words of this little essay, and yet there is in some who accept them with a mental shrug, and raising of the eyebrows, when they pass back from the loftiness of the adjective to the fatigue of the noun. Work is divine. Perhaps; but the outward sensible signs of it are sweat, blisters, headache, ink, chips, dirt, noise.

Don't let us, however, affect to slight the reverse of the fabric; don't let us exclaim, when the exhibiter displays it: You have made a mistake-that is the wrong side!' To some unaffected eyes, this is probably as interesting a phase as any. I don't care what the work is, whether it be a glove or the Warrior. It is most attractive to some when inside out. The fine ladies and gentlemen, indeed, who so often constitute themselves the sole judges of work, don't think so; to them, the last finished result, when the sawdust has been swept away, the paint-pot removed, the brush, hammer, oil-can, and adze carried off, is the only test of the deed. They promenade on the deck