sented itself of keeping out of one of the
pauper wards of that institution. However, he was not a bad reader,
and wrote an excellent hand. With books of geography and history
before him, he could make no blunders in his teaching; and although
he might have been failing in method, he was not harsh or
unkind--and the boys, therefore, learned as much with him as they
might have done with a more learned master, of a harsher
disposition.

He soon recognized not only William's anxiety to learn, but the
fearlessness and spirit with which he was always ready to own a
fault, and to bear its punishment. On several occasions he brought
the boy before the notice of the guardians, when they came round
the school and, when questions had to be asked before visitors,
William Gale was always called up as the show boy.

This prominence would have made him an object of dislike, among the
other lads of his own age; had it not been that William was a
lively, good-tempered boy; and if, as sometimes happened on these
occasions, a sixpence or shilling was slipped into his hand by some
visitor, who was taken by his frank open face and bright
intelligent manner, it was always shared among his school fellows.

At one of the examinations the wife of a guardian, who was present
with her husband, said on returning home:

"It must be very dull for those poor boys. I will pack up some of
the boys' books, and send them. Now they have gone to college, they
will never want them again; and they would make quite a library for
the workhouse boys. There must be twenty or thirty of them, at
least."

If ladies could but know what brightness they can infuse into the
lives of lads, placed like these in Ely workhouse, by a simple act
of kindness of this kind, there would not be an institution in the
kingdom without a well-supplied library. The gift infused a new
life into the school. Hitherto the world outside had been a sealed
book to the boys. They knew of no world, save that included within
the walls of the house. Their geography told them of other lands
and people, but these were mere names, until now.

Among the books were Robinson Crusoe, Midshipman Easy, Peter
Simple, three or four of Cooper's Indian tales, Dana's Life before
the Mast, and several of Kingston's and Ballantyne's books. These
opened a wonderland of life and adventure to the boys. The
schoolmaster used to give them out, at twelve o'clock; and they
were returned at two, when school r