have wicked
feelings. If you went to church this morning--'

'I didn't. I was too miserable,' Jack interrupted.

'Well, I am sorry for that,' she said very gently, 'because if you had
gone you would have heard the words which tell us to put away the leaven
of malice and wickedness, Jack. I have thought so much more of religion
since I came to Bristol, I don't quite know why, but I have thought how,
if we really love God, He will keep us safe--safe from evil passions
such as we have seen possess poor Tom Chatterton. I could cry when I
think that when he was only a little boy of eleven he could write those
beautiful verses on "Christmas Day," and not long ago the lines on
"Faith," and yet get so mastered by his passion that he could actually
write a will to be read when he had sinned against God by killing
himself to-day. And he is now cast out on the world, which will break
his poor mother's heart.'

But Jack Henderson did not care to hear about the mad apprentice just
then. He rose from his seat with a gesture of impatience.

'I don't want to hear about Tom Chatterton,' he said. 'I asked you a
plain question, and I want a plain answer.'

'Well, then, dear Jack, we shall always be friends, I hope. But I could
not--no, I could not promise more.'

'Very well,' he said moodily. 'But look here, Bryda, if I thought that
scoundrel Bayfield had anything to do with this I'd break every bone in
his body--I swear I would!'

'You have no right to speak to me like this,' Bryda replied. 'You have
no right to suppose that the Squire has anything to do with what I say
to you.'

'Haven't I, then? What did he mean by sneaking in last Christmas with
presents, and daring to--' Jack stopped, and then in a choked voice he
said, 'Don't be angry with me, Bryda; that would be worse than all.'

'No, I won't be angry if you are good,' she said, in a tone she would
have used to soothe a child, 'and now let us go round by the village and
down by Bristol to the Hot Wells.'

Yes, Clifton was then only a village, and Chatterton had already sung
its charms in lines which ought to be known and prized by those who live
in the Clifton of these days. It is true Clifton is no longer 'the sweet
village' which the boy poet describes, though it may still be

The loved retreat of all the rich and gay,

it is not the Clifton of a century and more ago. Now it is rather a city
of mansions and stately crescents, of colleges and schools, than a
v