“Arthur's getting on.” thought Richard. But he had to learn how much Wingfold had done for him. First of all he had set himself, by talking to him and lending him books, to find out his bent, or at least something he was capable of. But for months he could not wake him enough to know anything of what was in him: the poor fellow was weary almost to death. At last, however, he got him to observe a little. Then he began to set him certain tasks; and as he was an invalid, the first was what he called “The task of twelve o'clock;”--which was, for a quarter of an hour from every noon during a month, to write down what he then saw going on in the world. The first day he had nothing to show: he had seen nothing! “What were the clouds doing?” Mr. Wingfold asked. “What were the horses in the fields doing?--What were the birds you saw doing?--What were the ducks and hens doing?--Put down whatever you see any creature about.” The next evening, he went to him again, and asked him for his paper. Arthur handed him a folded sheet. “Now,” said Mr. Wingfold, “I am not going to look at this for the present. I am going to lay it in one of my drawers, and you must write another for me to-morrow. If you are able, bring it over to me; if not, lay it by, and do not look at it, but write another, and another--one every day, and give them all to me the next time I come, which will be soon. We shall go on that way for a month, and then we shall see something!” At the end of the month, Mr. Wingfold took all the papers, and fastened them together in their proper order. Then they read them together, and did indeed see something! The growth of Arthur's observation both in extent and quality, also the growth of his faculty for narrating what he saw, were remarkable both to himself and his instructor. The number of things and circumstances he was able to see by the end of the month, compared with the number he had seen in the beginning of it, was wonderful; while the mode of his record had changed from that of a child to that almost of a man.