"that,
if I were going to write to my mother, I would tell her, with his love,
that she need not make herself in the least uneasy, as _he had quite_
got over his last little attack". In a few minutes they had all quitted
the house, and I remained the sole tenant of the pupils' room.

Many a long year has passed over my head since the day I am now
describing, and each (though my life has been on the whole as free
from care as that of most of the sons of Adam) has brought with it some
portion of sorrow or suffering to temper the happiness I have enjoyed,
and teach me the much-required lesson, that "here we have no abiding
place". I have lived to see bright hopes fade--high and noble
aspirations fall to the ground, checked ~23~~by the sordid policy of
worldly men--and the proud hearts which gave them birth become gradually
debased to the level of those around them, or break in the unequal
struggle--and these things have pained me. I have beheld those dear to
me stretched upon the bed of sickness, and taken from me by the icy
hand of death; and have deemed, as the grave closed over them, that my
happiness, as far as this world was concerned, was buried with them. I
have known (and this was grief indeed) those loved with all the warm
and trustful confidence of youth prove false and unworthy of such deep
affection; and have wished, in the bitterness of my soul, that the pit
had shut her mouth upon me also, so I had but died with my faith in them
unshaken. Still, although such sorrows as these may have produced a
more deep and lasting effect, I do not remember ever to have felt more
thoroughly desolate than upon the present occasion. The last scene,
though trifling in itself, had made a great impression upon me, from the
fact that it proved, as I considered, the animus of the pupils towards
me. "Every man's hand was against me." Even the oaf Mullins might insult
me with impunity; secure that, in so doing, if in nothing else, he
would be supported by the rest. Then I had offended my tutor, all my
predilections in whose favour had returned with double force, since I
had satisfied myself that he was not addicted to the commission of petty
larceny; offended him by allowing him to suppose that I had practised
a mean deception upon him. Moreover, it was impossible to explain my
conduct to him without showing up Coleman, an extreme measure for which
I was by no means prepared. Besides, every one would think, if I were to
do so, that