publishers." In one place Borrow says: "I am, of course, nothing to her, but she is mistaken in thinking she is nothing to me." Borrow represents himself as tyrannically imposing himself upon the girl as teacher of Armenian, enlivening the instruction with the one mild _double entendre_, of "I decline a mistress." At times they seem on terms of as perfect good fellowship as ever was, with a touch of post-matrimonial indifference; but Isopel had fits of weeping and Borrow of listlessness. Borrow was uncommonly fond of prophetic tragic irony. As he made Thurtell unconsciously suggest to the reader his own execution, so he makes Isopel say one day when she is going a journey: "I shall return once more." Lavengro starts but thinks no more of it. While she was away he began to think: "I began to think, 'What was likely to be the profit of my present way of life; the living in dingles, making pony and donkey shoes, conversing with Gypsy-women under hedges, and extracting from them their odd secrets?' What was likely to be the profit of such a kind of life, even should it continue for a length of time?--a supposition not very probable, for I was earning nothing to support me, and the funds with which I had entered upon this life were gradually disappearing. I was living, it is true, not unpleasantly, enjoying the healthy air of heaven; but, upon the whole, was I not sadly misspending my time? Surely I was; and, as I looked back, it appeared to me that I had always been doing so. What had been the profit of the tongues which I had learned? had they ever assisted me in the day of hunger? No, no! it appeared to me that I had always misspent my time, save in one instance, when by a desperate effort I had collected all the powers of my imagination, and written the 'Life of Joseph Sell'; but even when I wrote the 'Life of Sell,' was I not in a false position? Provided I had not misspent my time, would it have been necessary to make that effort, which, after all, had only enabled me to leave London, and wander about the country for a time? But could I, taking all circumstances into consideration, have done better than I had? With my peculiar temperament and ideas, could I have pursued with advantage the profession to which my respectable parents had endeavoured to bring me up? It appeared to me that I could not, and that the hand of necessity had guided me from my earliest years, until the present night in which I found myself seated in the dingle, staring on the brands of the fire. But ceasing to think of the past which, as irrecoverably gone, it was useless to regret, even were there cause to regret it, what should I do in future? Should I write another book like the 'Life of Joseph Sell;' take it to London, and offer it to a publisher? But when I reflected on the grisly sufferings which I had undergone whilst engaged in writing the 'Life of Sell,' I shrank from the idea of a similar attempt; moreover, I doubted whether I