am, was so quickly
and completely lost that it was ere long impossible to detect that he had
not been born and bred among people of what is commonly called education.
The boy paid great attention to his work, and more than justified the
favourable opinion which Mr Fairlie had formed concerning him. Sometimes
Mr Fairlie would send him down to Paleham for a few days' holiday, and
ere long his parents perceived that he had acquired an air and manner of
talking different from any that he had taken with him from Paleham. They
were proud of him, and soon fell into their proper places, resigning all
appearance of a parental control, for which indeed there was no kind of
necessity. In return, George was always kindly to them, and to the end
of his life retained a more affectionate feeling towards his father and
mother than I imagine him ever to have felt again for man, woman, or
child.

George's visits to Paleham were never long, for the distance from London
was under fifty miles and there was a direct coach, so that the journey
was easy; there was not time, therefore, for the novelty to wear off
either on the part of the young man or of his parents. George liked the
fresh country air and green fields after the darkness to which he had
been so long accustomed in Paternoster Row, which then, as now, was a
narrow gloomy lane rather than a street. Independently of the pleasure
of seeing the familiar faces of the farmers and villagers, he liked also
being seen and being congratulated on growing up such a fine-looking and
fortunate young fellow, for he was not the youth to hide his light under
a bushel. His uncle had had him taught Latin and Greek of an evening; he
had taken kindly to these languages and had rapidly and easily mastered
what many boys take years in acquiring. I suppose his knowledge gave him
a self-confidence which made itself felt whether he intended it or not;
at any rate, he soon began to pose as a judge of literature, and from
this to being a judge of art, architecture, music and everything else,
the path was easy. Like his father, he knew the value of money, but he
was at once more ostentatious and less liberal than his father; while yet
a boy he was a thorough little man of the world, and did well rather upon
principles which he had tested by personal experiment, and recognised as
principles, than from those profounder convictions which in his father
were so instinctive that he could give no account conc