urposeless they vie with wax to paste
Their narrow cells, and choke the crannies fast
With pollen, or that gum specific which
Out-binds or birdlime or Idxan pitch--"

--And so on, and so on, until midday arrived, and Isabel with the
claret and biscuits. She lingered while he ate: and when he had done
he shut his Virgil, saying (in a tone which, though studiously kind,
told me that she was not wholly forgiven):

"Take the drum, Isabel, and give the lad his first lesson. It will
not disturb me."

She choked down a sob, passed the drum to me, and put the drumsticks
into my hands. And so by signs rather than by words, she began to
teach me; scarcely letting me tap the vellum, but instructing me
rather how to hold the sticks and move my wrists. So quiet were we
that the old man by and by dropped asleep: and then, as she taught,
her tears flowed.

This was the first of many lessons; for I spent a full fortnight at
Minden Cottage, free of its ample walled garden, but never showing my
face in the high road or at the windows looking upon it. I learned
from Isabel that Whitmore had not been found, and that Archibald and
his regiment had sailed for Lisbon. Sometimes Miss Belcher or
Mr. Rogers paid us a visit, and once the two together: and always
they held long talks with the Major in his summer-house. But they
never invited me to be present at these interviews.

So the days slipped away and I almost forgot my fears, nor speculated
how or when the end would come. My elders were planning this
for me, and meanwhile life, if a trifle dull, was pleasant enough.
What vexed me was the old man's obdurate politeness towards Isabel,
and her evident distress. It angered me the more that, when she was
not by he gave never a sign that he brooded on what had befallen, but
went on placidly polishing his petty and (to me) quite uninteresting
verses.

But there came an evening when we finished the Fourth Georgic
together.

"Of tillage, timber, herds, and hives, thus far
My trivial lay--while Caesar thunders war
To deep Euphrates, conquers, pacifies,
Twice wins the world and now attempts the skies.
Pardon thy Virgil that Parthenope
Sufficed a poor tame scholar, who on thee
Whilom his boyish pastoral pipe essayed,
--Thee, Tityrus, beneath the beechen shade."

He closed the book.

"Lord Wellington is not a Caesar," he said and paused, musing: then,
in a low voice, "Par