bench
of judges, not on the bench of bishops, that we must look for them in
after life. Arthur, therefore, had thought of the joys of a Chancery
wig, and had looked forward eagerly to fourteen hours' daily labour
in the purlieus of Lincoln's Inn. But when, like many another, he
found himself disappointed in his earliest hopes, he consoled himself
by thinking that after all the church was the safer haven. And when
he walked down to West Putford there was one there who told him that
it was so.

But we cannot follow him too closely in these early days. He did go
into the church. He did take pupils at Oxford, and went abroad with
two of them in the long vacation. After the lapse of the year, he did
get his fellowship; and had by that time, with great exertion, paid
half of that moiety of his debt which he had promised to liquidate.
This lapse in his purposed performance sat heavy on his clerical
conscience; but now that he had his fellowship he would do better.

And so somewhat more than a year passed away, during which he was but
little at Hurst Staple, and very little at West Putford. But still he
remembered the sweetly-pensive brow that had suited so well with his
own feelings; and ever and again, he heard from one of the girls at
home, that that little fool, Adela Gauntlet, was as bad as a parson
herself, and that now she had gone so far that nothing would induce
her to dance at all.

So matters stood when young Wilkinson received at Oxford a letter
desiring his instant presence at home. His father had been stricken
by paralysis, and the house was in despair. He rushed off, of course,
and arrived only in time to see his father alive. Within twenty-four
hours after his return he found himself the head of a wailing family,
of whom it would be difficult to say whether their wants or their
griefs were most heartrending. Mr. Wilkinson's life had been insured
for six hundred pounds; and that, with one hundred a year which
had been settled on the widow, was now the sole means left for the
maintenance of her and her five children;--the sole means excepting
such aid as Arthur might give.

"Let us thank God that I have got the fellowship," said he to his
mother. "It is not much, but it will keep us from starving."

But it was not destined that the Wilkinsons should be reduced even to
such poverty as this. The vicarage of Hurst Staple was in the gift of
the noble family of Stapledean. The late vicar had been first tutor
and