eared to any unbiassed observer
of character, Miss Cadman conceived a hope that Godwin might become a
clergyman. From her point of view it was natural to assume that
uncommon talents must be devoted to the service of the Church, and she
would have gladly done her utmost for the practical furthering of such
an end. Mrs. Peak, though well aware that her son had imbibed the
paternal prejudices, was disposed to entertain the same hope, despite
solid obstacles. For several years she had nourished a secret
antagonism to her husband's spirit of political, social, and religious
rebellion, and in her widowhood she speedily became a pattern of the
conservative female. It would have gratified her to discern any
possibility of Godwin's assuming the priestly garb. And not alone on
the ground of conscience. Long ago she had repented the marriage which
connected her with such a family as that of the Peaks, and she ardently
desired that the children, now exclusively her own, might enter life on
a plane superior to their father's.

'Godwin, how would you like to go to College and be a clergyman?' she
asked one Sunday afternoon, when an hour or two of congenial reading
seemed to have put the boy into a gentle humour.

'To go to College' was all very well (diplomacy had prompted this
preface), but the words that followed fell so alarmingly on Godwin's
ear that he looked up with a resentful expression, unable to reply
otherwise.

'You never thought of it, I suppose?' his mother faltered; for she
often stood in awe of her son, who, though yet but fourteen, had much
of his father's commanding severity.

'I don't want to be a parson,' came at length, bluntly.

'Don't use that word, Godwin.'

'Why not? It's quite a proper word. It comes from the Latin _persona_.'

The mother had enough discretion to keep silence, and Godwin, after in
vain trying to settle to his book again, left the room with disturbed
countenance.

He had now been attending the day-school for about a year, and was
distinctly ahead of his coevals. A Christmas examination was on the
point of being held, and it happened that a singular test of the lad's
moral character coincided with the proof of his intellectual progress.
In a neighbouring house lived an old man named Rawmarsh, kindly but
rather eccentric; he had once done a good business as a printer, and
now supported himself by such chance typographic work of a small kind
as friends might put in his way. He conceiv