I.—“It is so long since I left school, that I fear I may be plucked!”

“Oh, you’ll be quite ready for the examination in a week, my boy,”—said the vicar, to encourage me.—“The examiners only require superficial knowledge; not, honest groundwork—although, they pretend to test the effects of a ‘good liberal education!’ One of these public crammers would make you fit to pass in any certified time, if you could barely read and write. He would hardly require even that preliminary basis to work upon, for that matter. But, I ought not to blame them; for, I am a coach myself, or, rather, was one, once, when I had the time to read with pupils for the university. These competitive examinations are a mistake, I think,”—he continued,—“for the men who pass them the most brilliantly seldom make the best clerks, which one would imagine to be the result mainly desired. I would prefer, myself, the present middle-class examinations at Oxford—which they lately instituted, for discovering talent and merit—to all these hot-house tests; although, of course, I may be biassed against them, through the recollection of my old don days, when I was at college.

“Not but what the idea of throwing open all appointments in the public service is better than the former custom of close patronage. The system is only abused, that’s all, in consequence of the Competition-Wallah business being carried to excess. Your poor man, whom the change was especially supposed to benefit, has no chance now, unless he has the money to pay for the services of a crammer—be his attainments never so great. The examinations have really degenerated into a technical groove, into which aspirants have to be regularly initiated by a ‘coach,’ or they will never succeed in getting out of it, to receive their certificates of proficiency.

“I will write you down the name of a good man to apply to, Frank,”—he added.—“He’ll pass you, I warrant, or I will eat my hat! And now I must be off, my boy. I have a lot of visiting to do to-night ere I can hope to go to bed. I’ll not forget to speak to the bishop, as I have promised; and, I think, you may rely upon getting a nomination for a good office within the time I have named. Have you anything to do out, Sally—any letters to post?”—he then said, turning to his sister, and putting on the hat he had just volunteered to eat.—“No? Then I’m off. Good-night, Frank! Mind you go to that tutor to-morrow,”—he said, handing me the address he had hastily scribbled down; and, he went out on some errand of mercy, leaving Miss Pimpernell and myself to resume our tête-à-tête conversation, which he had so satisfactorily interrupted.

“Well, Frank!”—said she, as his coat tails disappeared out of the doorway,—“will not that do for you?”

“I should just think it would!”—I replied, buoyantly;—“and I do not know how to thank you and the vicar for all your kindness. I can’t tell what I should have done without your help!”

“Oh, never mind that, my boy,”—she answered kindly;—“we are both only too glad to assist any one, especially you, Frank, whom the vicar calls his ‘old maid’s son!’ All you have to do now, is, to be hopeful and persevere! Only let me see you and Miss Min happily married in the end—for I, you know, like to see young lovers happy:—I have such a large amount of romance in me!” Indeed she had, I thought, when she laughed cheerily at the idea.

“I’ll work, never fear,”—I said—“but, promotion is very slow in Government offices. It may be years before I have a decent income such as would satisfy Mrs Clyde!”

“Don’t think of that, my boy,”—she said, presently.—“Don’t look too far ahead! Let me see what my Keble says,” she added, taking down the volume of the Christian Year, which she constantly consulted each day, from its regular place on her corner of the mantelpiece, where it always stood guard over her favourite chair.—“Ah,”—she continued, turning over the pages,—“I knew that I would find something to suit you. Just hear what he says of the ‘lilies of the field’—

“‘Alas! of thousand bosoms kind
    That daily court you and caress,
How few the happy secret find
    Of your calm loveliness!
Live for to-day! to-morrow’s light
To-morrow’s cares shall bring to sight,
Go, sleep like closing flowers at night,
    And Heaven thy morn shall bless.’”

“Ah! But do you think I shall be successful?”—I asked, wishing to have my own hopes corroborated.

“To be sure you will, my boy. Why, there you will have another hundred a-year at once added to your income, besides what you make from your literary work! In a short time you will be quite ‘an eligible person,’ I do declare!”—she said, laughing away my fit of the blues, in her bright brisk way.

“And do you think Min will wait for me?”

“Certainly, Frank. You wrong her by the very question. She’s not the girl to change, or, I’m very much mistaken in her honest, noble face. She will be constant and true, after what she has said to you, until death!”

“Oh, thank you for that assurance,”—I said.

I went home completely contented and happy.

You may wonder, perhaps, at this buoyancy of temperament, that enabled me to get over so quickly the disappointment and dejection I was suffering from at Mrs Clyde’s brusque rejection of my suit?

But, you must recollect that I was naturally sanguine, as I have previously told you; and, the memory of my unhappy defeat, although not quite forgotten, became merged into the hopeful anticipations I now had—of working for my darling, and being enabled to renew my offer, in a short time, with better chances of success.

Hang care! It killed a cat once, you know. Was it not Lord Palmerston, by the way, who once made that capital classic hit at the versatile chief of the Adullamites in Parliament during a debate on the budget, when he said—“Atra cura post equitem sedet?”

Care should not sit behind me, however; or, in front of me, either!

I wasn’t going to be a martyr to it, I promise you.

I would soon see Min again; and, in the meantime, I could wait for her and love her, in spite of all the stern mammas in creation, and notwithstanding that my tongue might be tied for awhile.

As long as I knew that she loved me in return, whom or what had I to fear?

I was, at all events, emperor of my own thoughts;—and, she was mine, there!