ow
holidays, they good-naturedly said that she might bring me with her. Dr.
Vaughan was always exceedingly kind to boys, and one morning, on our way
back from the daily service, he said to me--"Sir Grosvenor Le
Draughte[8] has proposed to break his journey here, on his return from
Scotland. Do you know him? No? Well--observe Sir Grosvenor. He is well
worthy of observation. He is exactly what the hymn-book calls 'a
worldling.'" The day advanced, and no Sir Grosvenor appeared. The Doctor
came into the drawing-room repeatedly, asking if "that tiresome old
gentleman had arrived," and Mrs. Vaughan plied him with topics of
consolation--"Perhaps he has missed his train. Perhaps there has been an
accident. Perhaps he has been taken ill on the journey"--but the Doctor
shook his head and refused to be comforted. After dinner, we sat in an
awe-struck silence, while the Vaughans, knowing the hour at which the
last train from Scotland came in, and the length of time which it took
to drive from the station, listened with ears erect. Presently the
wheels of a fly came rumbling up, and Dr. Vaughan, exclaiming, "Our
worst anticipations are realized!" hurried to the front door. Then,
welcoming the aged traveller with open arms, he said in his blandest
tones--"Now, my dear Sir Grosvenor, I know you must be dreadfully tired.
You shall go to bed at once." Sir Grosvenor, who longed to sit up till
midnight, telling anecdotes and drinking brandy-and-water, feebly
remonstrated; but the remorseless Doctor led his unwilling captive
upstairs. It was a triumph of the _Suaviter in modo_, and gave me an
impressive lesson on the welcome which awaits self-invited guests, even
when they are celebrities. But all this is a parenthesis.
I should be shamefully ungrateful to a place of peculiar enjoyment if I
forbore to mention the Library at Harrow. It was opened in 1863, as a
Memorial of Dr. Vaughan's Head-mastership, and its delicious bow-window,
looking towards Hampstead, was my favourite resort. On whole-holidays,
when others were playing cricket, I used to read there for hours at a
stretch; and gratified my insatiable thirst for Biographies, Memoirs,
and Encyclopaedias. The Library was also the home of the Debating
Society, and there I moved, forty-two years ago, that a Hereditary
Legislative Body is incompatible with free institutions; and supported
the present Bishop of Oxford in declaring that a Republic is the best
form of Government. The mention
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