But poor Jack dare not trust himself to ask what that reason might be. His was a mind slow to reach any conclusion. He was filled with a subtle uneasiness as to what might be the relations between Bryda and the Squire, and yet he dared not come to the point and ask the plain question. Bryda would resent it, and he might lose what was so precious to him--the Sunday walks and the sight of her who was the light of his eyes. He only repeated,-- 'He has got some reason, I'll warrant.' 'Kindness to an old man of seventy-six years is not that a reason enough to please you,' Bryda said, and then she added, 'I must go back to the parlour now. Mrs Lambert will awake and be angry if I am not at hand. Good-bye, Jack, good-bye. I hope it will be fair weather next Sunday, and then we'll go to the Redcliffe Meadows again. Good-bye.' Jack turned away sorrowful and uneasy, determined to watch the movements of the Squire and question Chatterton about him. 'And yet I should not like to act spy to _her_,' he sighed, as he went out into the relentless rain, which pattered on his best Sunday coat and dimmed the glory of the large gilt buttons with moisture. In a city like Bristol, then as now, many stories of love and hatred, of vain aspirations and blighted hopes, are told out, of which the passer-by in the busy streets knows nothing. To-day, as yesterday, our hermit spirits dwell apart, and even those with whom we live in daily intercourse but dimly guess what reason we have to smile or sigh. Perhaps there never has been anyone, dwelling apart in the dreams of romance, and the world of the past peopled by his own fervid imagination, whose short, sad story can be compared with that of Mr Lambert's apprentice. At this time of which I write--when Bryda Palmer was full of her own troubles, and with many misgivings tried to persuade herself she had given Mr Bayfield no promise, yet dreading lest he should interpret her acquiescence in the delay as a promise--Chatterton was brooding over his wrongs, and in August was in a frenzy of indignation when he received his cherished manuscripts back from Mr Walpole in a blank cover. This was the unkindest cut of all, for we all know that the wound to pride is, to a sensitive nature, the sorest and the slowest to heal. But Bristol took but little heed of the slender figure of Mr Lambert's apprentice as he paced the street, with hands clenched and brows knit, nursing his wrath against the great man who had once raised his hopes, and by his moody and fitful temper turning even his friends against him, or at any rate tending to make them indifferent to his woes. For Bristol citizens had many more important subjects claiming their attention at this particular time than the angry disappointment of a self-conscious and irritable boy.