never saw me before."

It was a help to him when somebody came in to spread that bare
table with supper. Fried pork, and cheese; and bread that was
not his mother's sweet baking, and tea that was very
"herbaceous." It was the fare he must expect up the mountain.
He did not mind that. He would have lived on bread and water.
The company were not fellow-travellers either, to judge by
their looks. No matter for that; he did not want company. He
would sing, "My mind to me a kingdom is;" but the kingdom had
to be conquered first; enough to do. He was thinking all
supper-time what waste ground it was. And after supper he was
taken to his very spare room. It was doubtful how the epithet
could possibly have been better deserved. That mattered not;
the temple of Learning should cover his head by and by; it
signified little what shelter it took in the mean while. But
though he cared nothing for each of these things separately,
they all together told him he was a traveller; and Winthrop's
heart owned itself overcome, whatever his head said to it.

His was not a head to be ashamed of his heart; and it was with
no self-reproach that he let tears come, and then wiped them
away. He slept at last; and the sleep of a tired man should be
sweet. But "as he slept he dreamed." He fell to his
journeyings again. He thought himself back on the wearisome
road he had come that day, and it seemed that night and
darkness overtook him; such night that his way was lost. And
he was sitting by the roadside, with his little bundle, stayed
that he could not go on, when his mother suddenly came, with a
light, and offered to lead him forward. But the way by which
she would lead him was not one he had ever travelled, for the
dream ended there. He awoke and knew it was a dream; yet
somewhat in the sweet image, or in the thoughts and
associations it brought back, touched him strangely; and he
wept upon his pillow with the convulsive weeping of a little
child. And prayed, that night, for the first time in his life,
that in the journey before him his mother's God might be his
God. He slept at last.

He awoke to new thoughts and to fresh exertion. Action,
action, was the business of the day; to get up the hill of
learning, the present aim of life; and to that he bent
himself. Whether or not Winthrop fancied this opportunity
might be a short one, it is certain he made the most of it.
Mr. Glanbally had for once his heart's desire of a pupil.

It was a we