would enable me, he said, to earn a good living,
and would put me in the way of a sufficient
livelihood, by liberal advances, not by gifts of money.
But he would charge nothing on account of
ordinary maintenance, either at Bradford or in
London lodgings, while I was attending lectures.
I believed he might be right. An easy, ready-
made encumbrance to give gravity to one's start
in the world might be the lock upon the leg that
saves a colt from straying into pitfals. But I,
unfortunately, went head first into a pitfal, clog
and all, and, had it not been for the clog, might
possibly have scrambled out much sooner than
I did.

I knew that I had white hair and played the
flute. I knew also that I composed sentimental
poetry to be read under trees to Miss Tims, and
that your poet is no better than a dreamer.
Some of that verse I printed in a gilt-edged
book upon the credit of the three hundred
pounds, out of which, when of age, I could pay
any adverse balance to a friendly publisher and
printer. I had, therefore, a reasonable doubt as
to my own power of pulling through in Life, and
I looked eagerly towards the future. Uncle
James considered my abilities to be unlimited;
but was disgusted at my way of showing them.
He kindly bought ten copies of Flora's Awakening:
Poems and Translations. By T. Pawley.
But for the next few months I found the leaves
of that work applied to so many ignominious
household uses, that I could not thank him with
a good grace for his fifty shillings. Cousin
Polly took from the ten copies the ten pages on
which was an acrostic upon the word Deborah,
and used them successively as kettle-holders for
as many weeks. Little Bob had all the prefaces
made for him into fly traps by Cousin Kate, and
when this sort of torture seemed to be approaching
the natural term set to it by the destructibility
of paper, my good uncle liberally subscribed
for ten copies more, which he enjoyed
in like manner. Whenever I went home to
Bradford, scraps of my own amatory verse were
to be read at breakfast-time outside my cousin
Polly's head. When my books were dissected,
she seized upon that part of their contents—
their very nerves—for curl-papers. What matter?
They were also inside somebody else's heart.
But the persecution conquered me: I forswore
all farther printing of verse, and only continued
to write it for another year or two.

One thing, however, I did not forswear, and
that was Miss Tims that was, the good wife
now asleep up-stairs. Uncle James wished
in his good nature to provide for me; and, as
he had great faith in me, if I would but sober
into something practical, the desire of his heart
was that I should become the husband of his
Polly, who would have some thousands for her
portion, out of which he could deduct my debt
to him, and by help of which I could be
handsomely settled in the world. Of all this he said
nothing, but he set his face and his heart against
Miss Tims. She had not a penny, she was a
designing person, and her father was a retail
tradesman. Could she honestly aspire to marry
a young gentleman whose uncle was a manufacturer
of stockings, whose father had been a
lieutenant in the army, and some of whose
ancestors were knights before the civil wars ?

"Why, what arms has Miss Tims?" asked
the old gentleman.

"The whitest and roundest, uncle, with the
neatest little hands——"

"Faugh, sir, what arms are those for a young
gentleman to marry into!"

Deborah's father was a chubby bookseller,
the cosiest of men, and her mother the most
comfortable of good-humoured dames. They
liked me well enough, but without the consent
of my uncle I must not marry their daughter.
They had their pride also, and I was forbidden
to appear at Twickenham. But we persecuted
young folks, who are now the happiest of old
folks, held by one another in our hearts; and I
looked forward for the new doubt, only the
more eagerly into the future.

Desperately anxious, therefore, to begin the
world, I qualified myself for practice at the age
of twenty-one, and went into the country as
assistant to a busy surgeon, only that I might
be as free as I could make myself, while looking
out for a fair opening in life. I watched
advertisements, and put myself upon the books of
medical agents, hoping for something that would
satisfy my longing and pass muster with my
uncle. It must be something very tempting
that would justify me, to him, in rushing at
the unripe age of twenty-one or twenty-two
into the full responsibilities of independent
practice.

To much noble promise I was deaf, until
within a twelvemonth I had made a great
discovery, and was put by a medical agent into
communication with Ezekiel Hawley, Esq., M.D.,
of Beetleborough, who desired, on reasonable
terms, to share evenly with me a practice of
One Thousand Pounds a year.

Doctor Hawley had a frank way of correspondence,
welcome to ingenuous youth, and his
almost fatherly manner when we met inspired
me with respect and confidence. It was the
benevolence of a father—he was thirty years
my senior—blended with the respect due from
an equal. I had taken his fancy, as he found
some way of saying; there was so much
harmony of taste between us, and he had long felt
the want in Beetleborough of a friend with
literary tastes and enlarged sympathies with
whom he could exchange, at the end of his day's
work, a thought, a feeling, or a fancy.
Beetleborough was in a wild pit country, and its
gentry was composed chiefly of single ladies,
while the great mass of its population was
unformed. A partner, in such a district, was a
pure misfortune if he could not be a friend, and
he did hope, therefore, that we might come to
terms. He had practised in the place for four-
and-twenty years, but of late it had begun so
rapidly to increase that his work grew upon his
hands, when he was wishing for a little rest. He
had earned enough for himself and his wife,
with their two daughters, but he had no wish to