sons. Every day he carried a
book or two in his satchel with his dinner, and read or translated
aloud while his father worked. Two hours were allowed for this in
the morning, and again two in the afternoon. Sometimes a day would
be set apart during which they talked nothing but Latin.
Difficulties in the text of their authors they postponed until the
evening, and worked them out at home, after supper, with the help of
grammar and dictionary.

The boy was not unhappy, on the whole; though for weeks together he
longed for sight of George Vyell, who seemed to have vanished into
space, or into that limbo where his childhood lay like a toy in a
lumber room. Taffy seldom turned the key of that room. The stories
he imagined now were not about fairies or heroes, but about himself.
He wanted to be a great man and astonish the world. Just how the
world was to be astonished he did not clearly see; but the triumph,
in whatever shape it came, was to involve a new gown for his mother,
and for his father a whole library of books.

Mr. Raymond never went back to his books now, except to help Taffy.
The Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews was laid aside.
"Some day!" he told Humility. The Sunday congregation had dwindled
to a very few, mostly farm people; Squire Moyle having threatened to
expel any tenant of his who dared to set foot within the church.

In the autumn two things happened which set Taffy wondering.

During the first three years at Nannizabuloe, old Mrs. Venning had
regularly been carried downstairs to dine with the family.
The sea-air (she said) had put new life into her. But now she seldom
moved from her room, and Taffy seldom saw her except at night, when--
after the old childish custom--he knocked at her door to wish her
pleasant dreams and pull up the weights of the tall clock which stood
by her bed's head.

One night he asked carelessly, "What do you want with the clock?
Lying here you don't need to know the time; and its ticking must keep
you awake."

"So it does, child; but bless you, I like it."

"Like being kept awake?"

"Dear, yes! I have enough of rest and quiet up here. You mind the
litany I used to say over to you?--Parson Kempthorne taught it to us
girls when I was in service with him; 'twas made up, he said, by
another old Devonshire parson, years and years ago--"

"'When I lie within my bed
Sick in heart and sick in head,
And with doubts discomforted,