y town, with a salary of thirty
pounds a year.

My father had given up two precious days, and put on his Sunday
clothes, in order to bring me to Eltham, and accompany me first to the
office, to introduce me to my new master (who was under some
obligations to my father for a suggestion), and next to take me to call
on the Independent minister of the little congregation at Eltham. And
then he left me; and though sorry to part with him, I now began to
taste with relish the pleasure of being my own master. I unpacked the
hamper that my mother had provided me with, and smelt the pots of
preserve with all the delight of a possessor who might break into their
contents at any time he pleased. I handled and weighed in my fancy the
home-cured ham, which seemed to promise me interminable feasts; and,
above all, there was the fine savour of knowing that I might eat of
these dainties when I liked, at my sole will, not dependent on the
pleasure of any one else, however indulgent. I stowed my eatables away
in the little corner cupboard--that room was all corners, and
everything was placed in a corner, the fire-place, the window, the
cupboard; I myself seemed to be the only thing in the middle, and there
was hardly room for me. The table was made of a folding leaf under the
window, and the window looked out upon the market-place; so the studies
for the prosecution of which my father had brought himself to pay extra
for a sitting-room for me, ran a considerable chance of being diverted
from books to men and women. I was to have my meals with the two
elderly Miss Dawsons in the little parlour behind the three-cornered
shop downstairs; my breakfasts and dinners at least, for, as my hours
in an evening were likely to be uncertain, my tea or supper was to be
an independent meal.

Then, after this pride and satisfaction, came a sense of desolation. I
had never been from home before, and I was an only child; and though my
father's spoken maxim had been, 'Spare the rod, and spoil the child',
yet, unconsciously, his heart had yearned after me, and his ways
towards me were more tender than he knew, or would have approved of in
himself could he have known. My mother, who never professed sternness,
was far more severe than my father: perhaps my boyish faults annoyed
her more; for I remember, now that I have written the above words, how
she pleaded for me once in my riper years, when I had really offended
against my father's sense of right.

Bu