flogged for disregard of absence; and as our occupation was barely worth the penalty, we at once put on our jackets, and departed in silence, to answer to our names, while, as a matter of course, we were to finish the battle after twelve, for my holiday afforded us ample time.

This morning, therefore, for the first time, we breakfasted in different rooms. Each now commenced this repast with feelings far from cheerful. The anger of the moment having passed away, there remained no sense of enmity between us; and yet, in an hour or two, we were to meet again, like a couple of dogs, and mangle each other as we best might.

Kennedy could not but feel that he was not only the strongest, but had actually been more prevalent in the contest than myself; nor did he, on this account, congratulate himself, when he reflected that the appointed hour was fast approaching when he must do his best to thrash me still more. The sole thought that weighed on my mind, was that of having quarrelled with a fellow whom I liked far beyond myself. At this moment the door opened, and Kennedy, placing his rolls and butter on the table, stretched his hand across it towards me, and the next, we were sipping our tea together out of the pewter salt-cellar, with no farther traces of enmity, save the three unequivocal black eyes we retained between us.

This subject reminds me of a very melancholy one which I witnessed several years afterwards; and as I have heard it discussed so frequently, and so erroneously, I cannot help wishing, if possible, to give a concise and true statement of the case. In the instance alluded to, the contest might be said to have terminated with no unusual consequences, for the clock had struck the hour in which it was imperative for every one of us to be in his dames for the night, and the combatants were in the act of putting on their coats, and all would have been well, had not a voice, which I distinctly recollect, exclaimed, "One more round!" Whichever had now declined would have been considered as vanquished: they closed, struggled for the fall, and the fall was fatal. The sole cause of this miserable catastrophe was that voice of a mere bystander, and of this he must be as sensible as I am. I know not who he may be, nor do I envy him his secret.

It was now getting towards the latter end of July, and I had been an Etonian nearly three months. During this time I had experienced a fair average of fighting, bullying, fagging, and flogging, and had also acquired some useful accomplishments. I could paddle my skiff up to Surly Hall and back, swim across the river at Upper Hope, and had even begun to get in debt, having some weeks ago "gone tick" with Joe Hyde for a couple of bottles of ginger-beer, with the proviso of returning them when empty, but which, it must be confessed, were still lying at the bottom of Deadman's Hole, for the farther improvement of my diving.

Having just been disappointed in my endeavours to procure a boat at Hester's, I was returning towards my dames about the middle of after-six, totally at a loss for amusement. Every other boy was now eagerly employed on the river, or at cricket, and the whole college was silent and deserted. As I strolled listlessly along, I observed a funeral slowly issuing from the church-door on its way to the burial-ground. Singular to say, this was the first instance of death's doing on a fellow-being I had yet witnessed. On its approach, I seated myself on the Long-walk wall, and watched the coffin and its noiseless followers, as they glided slowly before me. So soon as all had passed, I quietly slid down from my seat, and accompanied the procession at a little distance.

While we are young, we are not only moved more easily, but doubt not that every person else feels as sincerely. Under this impression, I accompanied the corpse towards its grave, touched with a sort of pity for the mourners, and sobered by a deep and respectful sympathy.

As I stood by the brink of the grave, I could not but feel a soothing comfort and hope under our affliction, so beautifully held out to us by the spirit of "the service of the dead;" and I even entertained an affection for the clergyman who officiated. But when I witnessed the lowering of the coffin to its future resting-place—heard the soft crumbling of the churchyard soil, as it dropped from the grasp of the sexton on the below-sounding coffin, down below—the anguished but stifled moan of the childless father, who had apparently expended his hard-got earnings for the interment of his child—I not only repassed the gates considerably affected, but overpowered with an indescribable dread of impending death. I was now possessed with a servile love of God, arising from fear; an anxiety to please and obey him, to an infinite degree. Alas! even at this early age, how worldly-minded, how pitiful, can be our motives!

I now determined within myself, as resolutely as presumptuously, to "go and sin no more;" and to that effect, that very evening, dived to the bottom of Deadman's Hole, and returned to Joe Hyde his horribly portentous bottles.

CHAPTER IV.ToC

A few weeks previous to the holidays, "the old Queen" gave a magnificent fête at Frogmore, when, to form a prominent feature in the day's amusements, her favourites, the Etonians, were invited to play a cricket-match, for which a beautiful space of lawn had already been most good-naturedly prepared.

I think the first approach to royalty must ever be most interesting to boys, at least it was deeply so to me on this day; for when I observed the wide-swelling lawns, the broad groves, and glassy lakes of this little paradise; the Queen, with the princesses and royal suite, as they glided over the turf in a train of pony-carriages, lined and shining with the richest satins; the splendid and gaudy clusters of marquees, glittering in all the pride of Tippoo's eastern magnificence, from whom they had been rifled, with their bright crescents blazing in the sunbeams—I found all the lovely and dearly remembered fancies, conjured before my infant imagination by the nursery tale, at once placed in delightful reality before me.

Towards the evening, I had rambled, considerably fatigued with the restless pleasures of the day, into the most secluded parts of the shrubberies, and was resting on a seat, listening to the notes of a bugle band in the distance, when they were interrupted by the steps of some one passing quickly along the gravel walk towards me, and the next moment I saw a girl approaching the gate in front of me. I instantly rose and opened it for her; but as she passed, the little girl, after a slight hesitation, inquired with an expression of some anxiety if I had seen her father, Sir George Curzon.

"I do not know your father by sight," I answered, "and fear you will hardly meet with him here; for I have been more than half an hour on this seat, and have seen no one at all."

"I declare," she sighed, "I do not know how I shall find him, and I am quite tired, too! But will you, if you please, tell me the way towards the palace—I should be much obliged to you?"

"As well as I can," I answered; "but would it not be better that I ran and inquired for your father, and brought him here, for then, in the meanwhile, as you are tired, you can rest yourself on this bench?"

"You are very good-natured," replied Miss Curzon, as she sat down; "but if you will only wait until I have rested for a