of the ringlets, how ethereal in
aspect, how far removed, how worshipful, how adorable! How refined was
her voice, how elegant her accent! She had spoken of him as a b'y, but
that was a local fashion, and Paul knew no better. She was far and far
away--a being of the skies, at once an aristocrat and an angel. He began
to make verses about her, of course--ghastly, fustian stuff, at the
recollection of which the Solitary shuddered, and then laughed. But from
that day forward Paul had spasmodic rages of personal cleanliness and
adornment.

There was a jar of goose-oil always kept on the top of the baking-oven
in the back-kitchen, and, learning that goose-oil was an unfailing
specific for the growth of whiskers and moustache, he began to rub his
lip and cheeks with this unguent Many a time when he was left alone he
lit a candle, and getting his face between it and the mirror, tried to
trace on the outline a fringe of hair. He found an occasional momentary
satisfaction in burned cork, but the joy was futile, and impermanent.

He met the Vision in the street one day when he was carrying a parcel,
and the shame of his menial employment, and the sense of the coarseness
of his clothes made him long for the earth to open. The fact that the
young person did not know him, or look at him, or think about him, made
no difference. The young head was filled with absurd dreams. Sometimes
he was a prince in disguise. He was being bred up to know nothing of his
princedom, so that he might be splendidly and properly astonished when
the revelation came. At other times he recognised his lowly origin, and
went away into the boy's Somewhere--a noble country full of beneficent
chances--and came back great and glorious, in gloves and patent-leather
boots, and a hat and moustache, and conquered the Vision and married
her. At other times he died, with his great heart unspoken, and was
buried in the parish churchyard.

But whilst he was full of all manner of ambitions and yearnings, and
dreams which nobody else in the wide world dreamed about, a family
conclave was held to decide what Paul should be. One Simmons, a dapper,
perky draper in the High Street, wanted a shop-boy, and Mrs. Armstrong
was for asking the place for Paul There was not a grain of ambition in
the household, and the melancholy fact was that there was no money to
bind Paul apprentice anywhere. But Paul would have none of the draper.
He was cuffed in corners by the maternal hand,