however, like a sneaking bully as he was,
never from that day forth let slip an
opportunity of annoying and insulting poor
Madonna. He made him a sort of fag, often
struck him, and more than once spat in his
face. On these occasions, Madonna's eyes
would light up with the same strange fire
we noticed before; but he never struck
again, and seemed to accept the necessity
of submitting to every indignity, as the
inevitable and only alternative of his not
fighting.

I'm now going back to the day of Madonna's
arrival.

His bed was in a large room, in which I,
and a whole lot of other chaps—fourteen, I
think—already slept. And after old Mopkins,
the spoony usher, had taken away the
candle, we began to talk as usual. Madonna
was rather silent.

"I say—you—new boy—what's your
name?"

"Madonna!" said his next neighbour.

"A penny for your thoughts. I bet I
know what they are."

"Tell me," said Madonna, who was sitting
up in bed, swinging his nightcap, "are any
of you fellows in love?"

A perfect volley of affirmatives replied.
Love, you must know, was a sort of epidemic
at Styles's—that is to say, it came in, at
intervals, with other games. There wasn't
much usually in the summer half; but when
cricket, and hockey, and trapball were
stopped, love came regularly in. It happened
to be highly fashionable at the time of
Madonna's appearance, having recently
received an immense impulse from the arrival
at Miss Billiter's, Pallas-House Academy, of
three new pupils, all pretty.

Pallas-House was so capitally close to us
that, by great skill and strength, a cricket-
ball might be propelled over an immense
wall, into their playground. It was a rum
old house, with two little turrets at one end
(that nearest us), one of which was called the
penitentiary, and used as a place of confinement
for pupils in disgrace. We saw (at
different times, of course) lots of little golden-
haired captives bobbing about in this cage,
sometimes playing with a smuggled doll,
sometimes trying to relieve the monotony of
prison-life by killing flies, or other innocent
pastime. We tried to establish a system of
communication by signal, but it failed. One
ingenious boy thought he had hit upon a
method of conveying relief and sympathy
in its sweetest form—sugar-candy. A
small parcel was carefully made up, and
attached to the tail of a kite, the wind being
fair for the penitentiary, and the prisoner on
the alert; the kite was dropped gradually
down the wind till it reached the necessary
point, then suddenly loosed, in the expectation
that the tail would drop past the prison-
window. It did so, with the greatest accuracy,
but the small prisoner's arm was too
short to catch it; the packet descended lower
than was intended, and flop it went right
through the window of Miss Billiter's
study! Kites were stopped for the rest of
the half.

To go back to our bedroom chat. A sigh
from Madonna was the next sound audible.

"Tell us all about it, old chap?" said a
voice from an adjacent couch, in a mock
sympathetic tone.

"If you won't make fun of it," replied
Madonna. "It's no laughing matter, I can
tell you. I've seen a good deal of the sort
of thing. I've had much sorrow."

"Have you, though? I shouldn't have
thought it, to look at you," squeaked Poppy
Purcell, across seven other chaps. "What's
she like?"

"I've been in love," said Madonna, "ever
since—I don't remember when I wasn't—nine
times, I think, with all sorts of women—but
bosh! It's all hollow, sir, hollow. They go
to school, and forget a fellow, or——"

"A fellow,—them,"—put in Matilda
Lyon (whose name was Matthew). "I fear,
Madonna, those precious eyes of yours have
much to answer for."

"I'm as constant a chap now as ever lived,"
rejoined Madonna, warmly, "whatever I
have been, in my younger days. The world
soon smudges off one's romance! Besides,
I'm tired of change. I'll tell you a secret.
I'm in love, and mean to be, for ever and
a day, with the sweetest little creature
breathing."

"Oh, of course!" "What's her name?"
"How old?" "Dark or fair?" "Ringlets?"
demanded several beds, the room
becoming much interested.

"Eleanor Wilton," said Madonna, in a low
voice. "She's an orphan, a kind of fifth
cousin of mine, sixteen times removed. She
came over from India, last year, after the
death of her mother, to be educated, and she
lives with a Mr. and Mrs. Perfect (perfect
brutes, I call them), the husband a snobbish
agent of her deceased papa. She's nearly
ten. She fell desperately in love with your
humble servant. I'd nothing in hand at the
moment, having just had a split with Anne
Chilcote, about dancing twice with a fellow
in tunics. And we're engaged."

"Engaged!"

"Regularly booked, sir. Why not? I've
had my swing. I've done. I can never love
again, after Eleanor. And she is a darling. I
promise you!"

We further gathered from the heart-worn
Madonna, that his present lady-love was, in
appearance, precisely his opposite, having
large night-black eyes and raven hair, colourless
cheeks, dark shades under the eyes, sad,
dreamy expression, &c. &c. In short, the
lover drew a very interesting and poetic
picture of his lady, and concluded by assuring
us that her attachment to himself, however
unmerited, approached to adoration.