sneaking ushers," said
I. "That's where I was brought up."

"Then that's what I call very bad bringing up."

"Not so bad as being brought down here, anyhow."

His next "excessively droll, isn't it?" brought us to the door of the
academy; but, in passing over the play-ground, I could see, at once,
that I was with quite another class of beings than those who composed my
late school-fellows. They were evidently more delicately nurtured; they
had not the air of schoolboy daring to which I had been so much
accustomed, and they called each other "Master." Everything, too,
seemed to be upon a miniature scale. The house was much smaller, yet
there was an air of comfort and of health around, that at first I did
not appreciate, though I could not help remarking it.

No sooner was I conducted into the passage, than I heard a voice which I
thought I remembered, exclaim, "Show Master Rattlin in here, and shut
the door."

I entered; and the next moment I was in the arms of the mysterious and
very beautiful lady that had called to see me the few times that I have
recorded; and who, I conceived, was intimately connected with my
existence. I think that I have before said that she never avowed
herself, either to my nurse or to myself, as more than my godmother.
She evinced a brief, but violent emotion; and then controlled her
features to a very staid and matronly expression. For myself I wept
most bitterly; from many mingled emotions; but, to the shame of human
nature, and of my own, wounded pride was the most intolerable pang that
I felt. In all my day-dreams, I had made this lady the presiding
genius. I gave her, in my inmost heart, all the reverence and the
filial affection of a son; but it was the implied understanding between
my love and my vanity, that in joining herself to me as a mother, she
was to bestow upon me a duchess at least; though I should not have
thought myself over-well used had it been a princess. And here were all
these glorious anticipations merged, sunk, destroyed, in the person of a
boarding-school mistress of about twenty boys, myself the biggest. It
was no use that I said to myself, over and over again, she is not less
lovely--her voice less musical, her manner less endearing, or her
apparel less rich. The startling truth was ever in my ear--she "keeps a
school," and consequently, she cannot be my mother.

She could not know what was passing in my mind; but it was evident that
my grief was of