* *

It is not without an effort that I have resolved to break, in the course
of this narrative, the reserve maintained for nearly twenty years. But
the chief reason for silence is removed now that all those are gone who
might have been pained or harmed by what I have to tell, and, though I
shrink still from reviving certain memories that are fraught with pain,
there are others associated therewith which will surely bring
consolation and relief.

I must have been about eleven at the time I am speaking of, and the
change which--for good or ill--comes over most boys' lives had not yet
threatened mine. I had not left home for school, nor did it seem at all
probable then that I should ever do so.

When I read (I was a great reader) of Dotheboys Hall and Salem House--a
combination of which establishments formed my notion of school-life--it
was with no more personal interest than a cripple might feel in perusing
the notice of an impending conscription; for from the battles of
school-life I was fortunately exempted.

I was the only son of a widow, and we led a secluded life in a London
suburb. My mother took charge of my education herself, and, as far as
mere acquirements went, I was certainly not behind other boys of my
age. I owe too much to that loving and careful training, Heaven knows,
to think of casting any reflection upon it here, but my surroundings
were such as almost necessarily to exclude all bracing and hardening
influences.

My mother had few friends; we were content with our own companionship,
and of boys I knew and cared to know nothing; in fact, I regarded a
strange boy with much the same unreasoning aversion as many excellent
women feel for the most ordinary cow.

I was happy to think that I should never be called upon to associate
with them; by-and-by, when I outgrew my mother's teaching, I was to have
a tutor, perhaps even go to college in time, and when I became a man I
was to be a curate and live with my mother in a clematis-covered cottage
in some pleasant village.

She would often dwell on this future with a tender prospective pride;
she spoke of it on the very day that saw it shattered for ever.

For there came a morning when, on going to her with my lessons for the
day, I was gladdened with an unexpected holiday. I little knew
then--though I was to learn it soon enough--that my lessons had been all
holidays, or that on that day they were to end for ever.

My mother had had one o