on more than one instrument with more than boarding-school skill; and though she sang in no language but her own, few could hear her sweet voice without being deeply touched. Her music, her songs, had a wondrous effect on me. Thus, altogether, a kind of dreamy yet delightful melancholy seized upon my whole being; and this was the more remarkable, because contrary to my earlier temperament, which was bold, active, and hilarious. The change in my character began to act upon my form. From a robust and vigorous infant, I grew into a pale and slender boy. I began to ail and mope. Mr Squills was called in. “Tonics!” said Mr Squills; “and don’t let him sit over his book. Send him out in the air—make him play. Come here, my boy—these organs are growing too large;” and Mr Squills, who was a phrenologist, placed his hand on my forehead. “Gad, sir, here’s an ideality for you; and, bless my soul, what a constructiveness!” My father pushed aside his papers, and walked to and fro the room with his hands behind him; but he did not say a word till Mr Squills was gone. “My dear,” then said he to my mother, on whose breast I was leaning my aching ideality—“my dear, Pisistratus must go to school in good earnest.” “Bless me, Austin!—at his age?” “He is nearly eight years old.” “But he is so forward.” “It is for that reason he must go to school.” “I don’t quite understand you, my love. I know he is getting past me; but you who are so clever—” My father took my mother’s hand—“We can teach him nothing now, Kitty. We send him to school to be taught—” “By some schoolmaster who knows much less than you do—” “By little schoolboys, who will make him a boy again,” said my father, almost sadly. “My dear, you remember that, when our Kentish gardener planted those filbert-trees, and when they were in their third year, and you began to calculate on what they would bring in, you went out one morning, and found he had cut them down to the ground. You were vexed, and asked why. What did the gardener say? ‘To prevent their bearing too soon.’ There is no want of fruitfulness here—put back the hour of produce, that the plant may last.” “Let me go to school,” said I, lifting my languid head, and smiling on my father. I understood him at once, and it was as if the voice of my life itself answered to him. CHAPTER VI. A year after the resolution thus come to, I was at home for the holidays. “I hope,” said my mother, “that they are doing Sisty justice. I do think he is not nearly so quick a child as he was before he went to school. I wish you would examine him, Austin.” “I have examined him, my dear. It is just as I expected; and I am quite satisfied.” “What! you really think he has come on?” said my mother joyfully. “He does not care a button for botany now,” said Mr Squills. “And he used to be so fond of music, dear boy!” observed my mother with a sigh. “Good gracious! what noise is that?”