Mrs. A. took much notice of me, and her attitude towards me was singular. She was not quite old enough to be motherly to me, but she was too old for restrictions on her intercourse with me, and her wide experience and wisdom well qualified her to be my directress. Often when I went to her house nobody was there, and she would talk to me with freedom on all sorts of subjects. I did not fall in love with her, but she was still attractive as a woman, and difference of sex, delightful manners, subtle intellect, expressive grey eyes, and lovely black hair streaked with white, might have taught me much which I could have learned from no ordinary friend. My cousin often went with me to Mrs. A.’s, but I was never at rest when he was there. I fancied then that if I could have rendered a dozen lines of Gray’s _Elegy_ into correct Greek, life would have nothing more to give me. Mrs. A. was too well-behaved to encourage conversation in my cousin’s presence which disclosed my inferiority to him, but without premeditation it sometimes turned where I could not follow. As I have said, she had travelled in Greece. She understood something of modern Greek, and she and my cousin one evening fell to comparing it with ancient Greek. I sat sulky and dumb. At last she turned to me, and asked me smilingly why I was so quiet. I replied that I did not understand a word of what they were saying (which was untrue), and that if they would talk about Stamps and Taxes I could join. She divined in an instant what was the matter with me, and diverted the discussion so that it might be within my reach. ‘I must confess,’ she said, ‘that my knowledge of philology is no better than yours. Philology demands the labour of a life. I often wonder what the teacher, student, and school history of England will be at the end of another thousand years. Perhaps, however, in another thousand years books will no longer be written except on physics. Men will say, “What have we to do with the Wars of the Roses?” and as to general literature, they will become weary of tossing over and over again the same old ideas and endeavouring to imagine new variations of passion. The literary man will cease from the land. Something of this sort must come to pass, unless the human race is to be smothered.’ My cousin said he prayed that her prophecy might come true, but I remained hard and stockish. Her sweet temper, however, could not be disturbed, and she announced that she was going to see Rachel, the great actress, and invited us both to accompany her. I refused, on the ground that I knew nothing of French (also untrue). She assured me that if I would read the play beforehand I should be in no difficulty. I was really touched by her kindness, but the devil in me would not let me yield. I missed the opportunity of seeing Rachel, just as I missed many other opportunities of more importance. Oh! when I look back now over my