ed coldly but respectfully his offer, and told him
my intention. Here our correspondence ended, and six months afterwards my
name was on the boards of my college. I went up knowing no one, but
carrying from my friend, the schoolmaster, a letter of introduction to a
clergyman who had been his college friend, and who (now married and the
father of one child) earned his subsistence by taking pupils. I was
received by this poor but worthy man with extreme kindness. He read the
character which I had brought with me, and bade me make his house my
home. His hospitality was at first a great advantage to me. My slender
income compelled me to exercise rigid economy--and to avoid all company.
Although very poor, I have told you that I was already very proud. I
would not receive a favour which I could not pay back--I would not permit
the breath of slander to whisper a syllable against my name. There were
hours in which no book could be read with pleasure, which no study could
make light. Such were passed in delightful converse with my friend, and
thus I was spared even the temptation to walk astray. I need not tell you
that I had no tutor. It was a luxury I could not afford. I worked the
harder, and was all the happier for the victory I had gained--such I
deemed it--over my uncle. At the end of a twelve-month, I found my
expenses were even within my income. It was a sweet discovery. I had paid
my way. I did not owe a penny. I was respected, and no one knew my mode
of life, or the amount of income that I possessed. My friend, I said, had
one child. She was a daughter. During my first year's residence I had
never seen her. She was away in Dorsetshire nursing a cousin, who died at
length in her arms. She returned home at the commencement of my second
year, and I was introduced to her. She fell upon my solitary life like
the primrose that comes alone to enliven the dull earth--a simple flower
of loveliness and promise, graceful in herself--but to the gazer's eye
more beautiful, no other flower being present to provoke comparison. We
met often. She was an artless creature sir, and gave her love to me long,
long before she knew the price of such a gift. She doated on her father,
and it was a virtue that I understood. She was very fair to look at;
timid as the fawn--as guileless; a creature of poetry, sent to be a
dream, and to shed about her a beguiling unsubstantial brightness. All
things looked practicable and easy in the light in which s