he loses no
opportunity of insulting me, but after all she's a woman."

"By-the-by, Waymark," he added in a moment, "what a stunner the new
governess is! You're a lucky dog, to sit in the same room with her.
What's her name, I say?"

"Miss Enderby. You've seen her, have you?"

"I caught a glimpse of her as she came downstairs; it was quite enough;
she floored me. She's never been out of my thoughts for a minute since
I saw her. 'I love her, I love her, and who shall dare, to chide me for
loving that teacher fair!'"

"Well, yes," said Waymark, "she has a tolerable face; seems to me a
long way too good to be teaching those unlicked cubs. The dragon wasn't
too civil to her, though it was the first day."

"Not civil to her? If I were present, and heard that woman breathe the
slight eat incivility, I'd--"

He broke off in the midst of his vehemence with a startled look towards
the door.

"Mr. Egger," he exclaimed, "a song; I beg, a song. Come, I'll lead off.

'Miss Enderby hath a beaming eye'--

Bah! I'm not in voice to-night."

Egger was persuaded to sit down to the piano. It was a mournful
instrument, reduced to discordant wheeziness by five-finger exercises,
but the touch of the Swiss could still evoke from it some kind of
harmony. He sang a Volkslied, and in a way which showed that there was
poetry in the man's nature, though his outward appearance gave so
little promise of it. His voice was very fair, and well suited to
express the tender pathos of these inimitable melodies. Waymark always
enjoyed this singing; his eyes brightened, and a fine emotion played
about his lips. And as he walked along the dark ways to his lodgings,
Egger's voice was still in his ears--

"_Der Mensch wenn er fortgeht, der kommt nimmermefr_."

"Heaven be thanked, no!" the young man said to himself.

Poverty was his familiar companion, and had been so for years. His rent
paid each week, there often remained a sum quite insufficient for the
absolute necessities of existence; for anything more, he had to look to
chance pupils in the evenings, and what little he could earn with his
pen. He wrote constantly, but as yet had only succeeded in getting two
articles printed. Then, it was a necessity of his existence to mix from
time to time in the life of the town, and a stroll into the Strand
after nightfall inevitably led to the expenditure of whatever cash his
pocket contained. He was passionately found of the theatre; the lights
ab