by a word or sign from the landlady her mother, who was outside, deliberately shut herself in and trotted up to the bedside.

"I am not fond of children," repeated Tony to himself, resolutely, with a weary look at his visitor. Still this tiny elf was almost irresistible, with her fat, fresh, playful face half taken up by a pair of enormous brown eyes, that watched him wonderingly from behind the foxgloves and harebells she was clutching hard with both hands.

Watched him very narrowly, too. It can hardly be supposed that she was calculating and setting down. the sum total of her impressions, but something of the kind was passing in the little head. Tony was not proof against the prettiness before him. His mouth relaxed into a smile. "What fairy-tale may you come out of, little one ?" said he, stretching out his hand. She crammed the flowers into it, and gave a shy laugh of delight, which made him laugh back again.

"For you," she said, in her baby patois.

"From you?" asked Tony, and she nodded.

"What's your name?" said he, taking hold of her other hand, to which she made no resistance. "Dicky."

"Who ever gave you such a name?" he asked, laughing and continuing his catechism.

"Mamma's linnet bird," she replied with the utmost gravity. 'Now-what yours?"

"Tony." He tried to make her pronounce it. She clambered up on the edge of the bed, and sat there with her feet dangling down and playing with the flowers, while he encouraged her to prattle. amused him.

She

In a few minutes they were firm friends. Dicky he found was really a bewitching child, in her own way

amiable, affectionate, but quite original, and with a very decided and practical character of her own already.

"And where do the flowers live ?" asked Tony as she tossed them over one by one.

"In the wood," quoth Dicky. "I been up there, with mamma and sister Polly."

"What did you see in the wood?” he continued; "fairies; or bears, perhaps, or hobgoblins."

"No," she replied with emphasis, shaking her head, "I seen a naughty, naughty boy."

"How do you know he was naughty ?" said Tony; “I daresay he was no such thing.'

"No, he was bad," she returned resolutely; "he caught a dicky bird, and he was hurting it, he

was.

"That was wrong," Tony admitted, gravely. "And he laughed. But the dicky bird cried, and Polly cried—” And you cried too, I suppose." No," she exclaimed indignantly, "I ran to him and thumped him, I did."

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"You thumped him, did you ?" said Tony, laughing heartily.

"And he let go for I made him-and the dicky bird flew away home, so fast, it was glad, and Polly clapped her hands."

"And the naughty boy, did he not thump you?"

"No-he was so 'fraid," she replied, thoughtfully; the delinquent having in fact been too much taken aback by valour from such unexpected quarters to retaliate.

Here Dicky laid hold of a book of Ichabod's that he had left on the table, and inquired anxiously if there were any pictures in it. "Can you read ?" Tony asked. "I like pictures best," she replied evasively. "And why ?" said he. "I like pictures best because they're pretty," she replied un

answerably, laying hold of the volume and turning over the leaves with great care. It was a translation of Kant's philosophy-so she looked in vain for illustrations, and said she would read instead. This consisted in making Tony read aloud to her, she passing her finger along the lines and listening with the gravest attention to the sound of his voice, perfectly happy over this new game.

When Ichabod came in he found a strange spectacle-the place of sick nurse filled by a four-year-old perched up at Tony's side, with one arm round his neck, and looking over his shoulder, while he, as well as he could for laughing, was reading in solemn accents solemn periods of philosophy out of the enormous volume, stopping every now and then to feed her with his

grapes. She was so dreadfully concerned at his refusing to share these that he had had to begin to pacify her.

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Did you ever see such a jolly child, Ichabod? - the drollest, quaintest little creature! Dicky, Dicky I say, where are you off to :"

For Dicky had caught sight of Ichabod's face, and without an instant's hesitation, giving Tony a defiant kiss, slid down, trotted out of the room, and would not be called back again.

"Oh, you taking little thing," said Tony, leaning back, still laughing to himself at the philosophy lesson scene. Ichabod, amazed at the softened expression of pleasure on his face, felt instinctively provoked with that which had called it forth.

stitute their charm, and our pleasure in it is sheer egotism. What does it come from? The comparison we are always drawing, perhaps unconsciously, between their ignorance and weakness and our wisdom and strength."

Tony was too tired with his romp to argue. He seemed so decidedly better that afternoon, however, that Ichabod put off writing to his parents till the next day.

When the doctor came in the morning he found Tony and Dicky playing together, and shook his head ominously. The patient would over-talk, over-exert, oversomething himself. Still he was so much improved and so remarkably obstinate on this point that Esculapius, mollified by the apparent success of his skill, licensed Dicky to pay him a short daily visit, which her mother, seeing how the child cheered up the invalid, who was dull and wanted cheering, took the liberty of making as long as they chose.

But Dicky had an aversion to Ichabod that passed the bounds of decent civility. Did he show his face; she always tried to run away, and nobody could make her open her lips in his presence. "So shy," said her mother, apologetically; but the shyness

was

erratic, and vanished the instant Ichabod went out of the room. He soon began to return her dislike with an energy even he could not always conceal. One day when Tony, now decidedly convalescent, had been quoting some of the naïvely original speeches and artless ways of his small favourite with genuine delight, Ichabod broke out at last almost viciously:

"Very fine; I want you to remember, though, that in sober truth children are petted and admired and praised to the skies

every day for acts which, in men and women, we should call by their right names-rude speeches, offensive candour, imbecile indiscretion and imprudence, and blame and ridicule accordingly. I, for one, cannot go into raptures over such things, even in a child. And I call that tenderness simply maudlin that gushes out over qualities so cheap as ignorance and thoughtlessness, in a crude undergrown mind and body. It is a relic of the old superstition that required us to reverence them because they were nearer their Maker. According to that, I ought to take off my hat to a squalling infant a day old. There is a false sentiment lying at the root of this infatuation, but it is always breaking out when the foolish impulses I speak of have nothing to check them but reason."

"But is reason so full against them?" asked Tony. "Grace and simplicity and freshness and frankness are delicious things. They are so easy to lose that I think, but for children, we should sometimes forget that they exist."

"Bah! Who believes in these mysterious virtues of infancy? They won't bear examination. Childish ignorance and folly can

do no

manner of good except by disgusting us who know better, and inciting us to put a stop to both as early as possible. Try a little interrogation of your consciousness, Tony, and see."

"Well," said Tony, "all yesterday afternoon, having nothing else to do, I interrogated my own consciousness hard, but it would not or could not give your answer."

"But I tell you the error is glaring. What is the chief boast of civilisation? The great work it has done in dispelling primitive ignorance and childlike imprudence wherever they could be found. Now, if these were good qualities

they ought to have been set up as examples for imitation. Why, if the child-excellence theory were true, civilisation, which acts on the direct contrary principle, ought to have brought on some tremendous calamity by this time, some evil from which the sentimental instinct we gave way to in our days of darkness had acted as a preservation so long as those lasted. However, I think a man who behaved as if he believed this, or who openly mourned the decay of the infantile virtues of blind credulity and silly simplicity, would be more likely to be confined as a lunatic than respected as a philosopher."

Tony said this was sophistry, and they nearly came to a quarrel on the subject; and by no means could Ichabod induce him to agree, except to differ.

One thing was clear; the practical friendship between Dicky and Tony was too firm for any theory to shake. It annoyed Ichabod singularly, but he consoled himself with the thought that it must soon end, glad at least that the young fellow was recovering, and that it had not been necessary to give the alarm to his parents.

Yes; Tony was nearly well again. A few more days and he would be allowed to travel. Neither doctor nor friend ever suspected the strong hand that Dicky had had in the cure. Both, though great sticklers for the identity of mental and physical functions, forgot to allow for it in practice. When, in illness, does the fact not get put aside? The very people who swear by it laugh none the less at the old story of the musician who was cured of a fever by a concert at his bedside, or when a verdict of manslaughter is returned against a quarterly review.

Whereas, if the truth could be known, many lesser powers than quarterly reviews would be

brought in guilty of more or less justifiable homicide, and, on the other hand, the Royal Humane Society would have to award its medals in the strangest and most unexpected quarters.

There was one who had an inkling of the truth this time. Tony himself an impression that went deeper than could be calculated, and that argument had failed to remove. A reaction had begun to tell-a self-asserting something that gave the first check to Ichabod's mastery, the first threat to impair his influence.

Tony was thinking how few things in heaven and earth perhaps, after all, were dreamt of in this man's philosophy. It was a passing thought, but it did pass.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE career of a lecturer has its ups and downs. Ichabod had seen enough of the latter to disincline him privately to push his undertaking any farther at present, and he was even glad of the excuse and opportunity afforded by the delay and drawbacks springing from Tony's illness to bring his first experiment to an honourable close.

On leaving Bannerstoke they returned to London. Ichabod's energies were now turning into a literary channel. A great work on the scientific economy of happiness had been a scheme of his for years, and he now began to sketch the plan of it, with the intention of devoting himself during the autumn and winter to working it

out.

Tony's curiosity was piqued (as Ichabod had meant it should be) by this sudden and sedulous industry. He asked if a waif and a stray like himself could not be of some use in assisting him. "Of the greatest," said Ichabod. The subject he had chosen, "Greatest

Happiness for the Greatest Number," was a little wide, and, as he meant to treat it exhaustively, the help of anyone who would collect and class for him the facts he wanted from which to generalise would be an immense saving. At the same time it must be a most improving study for Tony himself

quicken his observation and direct his ingenuity. In a word, it was to complete the education of Ichabod's pupil.

This, as even Ichabod must observe, had slipped back a little since that illness. Tony seemed less submissive, practically, than before, and once or twice in conversation took a tone with his preceptor which the latter did not like.

For instance, as he was arranging the materials for Ichabod's preface, he came to the author, announced that he had tripped up in a problem, and required its instant solution.

They were going between them to arrange for the equal redistribution of the existing means of happiness, at present so unfairly

divided.

Suppose these for a moment to be represented by a sum of money, say, a million, and that the greatest amount for the greatest number principle could be suddenly applied. Might not the share and share alike rule, when carried out, be found to mean one farthing per head? In which case the result of this fairness and equity would simply be as complete a squandering of the wealth as if it had been thrown into the sea.

Ichabod took great pains to refute him and show him the fallacy. But in the midst of his argument he saw a look in Tony's face, which started an uncomfortable suspicion that he was quizzing him. So he cut short his discourse, begging his scholar to be content

with collecting facts, and to leave him, Ichabod, to draw the inferences, trusting to facts and inferences when combined for bringing him round.

Tony, though well again, was not yet up to the mark. The season had been relaxing, and only change of air and bracing could have fully restored his physical strength. September was coming on, "not too late yet for a run in Switzerland," the doctor had said significantly. Ichabod himself felt a little jaded with the fatigues of lecturing and severe study, for he knew not relaxation as a set-off to any undertaking in which he chose to engage. The matter was settled by Tony's father, who chanced to come up to town, and who, alarmed to find his son looking so altered and ill, determined to take him home. A constitutional on the Alps, however, was the one thing needful for the youth's health at that moment. Tony was quite conscious of this, and when Ichabod, not wishing to lose sight of his disciple just then, suggested a fortnight's tour instead of a visit to his parents, the disciple agreed at once. Mr. Sebright, the elder, was talked over in a few minutes, and went back home alone.

Not many days after, they started to cross the Channel, Tony in a state of real exhilaration, but which, as Ichabod was pleased to observe, he called upon, before they got to Calais, to give an account of itself.

soon

"Pray, Ichabod, what is the cause of the immense happiness travelling gives to nearly all people, so that they consent so readily to undergo all its miseries; not a few, either?"

"Only that little weed of hope, I suppose, that springs eternal in the human breast,' was the rejoinder. Imaginative peale

always believe firmly in what lies round the corner, and hope tells them it is of a more agreeable character than anything that has come into their experience. We

are naturally loth to believe the world as bad as it is, and as we have always found it, or that other circles are as humdrum as our own, other lives as disappointing and commonplace."

"And other people as little deserving as ourselves of credit, respect, to say nothing of admiration," put in Tony, sarcastically.

"Precisely.

Now, as most

people will be convinced by nothing but their own experience, and as life is too short for them to try everything, they take for granted that the untried is the delightful, and die cursing their ill luck and wretched position-instead of the delusion that made them think others were better off. But the more they know of the world the more they acknowledge that none of its glitter is gold."

Tony gave a long whistle, and went to the other end of the boat to crack the nut. He found it extremely hard. He broke his teeth upon it, and it seemed to him he found it hollow. He began talking to one of the sailors, and remained in conversation till they were nearing Calais. Then, on rejoining Ichabod, he found him in a brown study, with a fixed and unusual look of deep thought. Tony, surprised, asked if he minded the tossing.

Ichabod shrugged his shoulders: "It's no jesting matter, Tony. This point that was occupying me just now is a real stumbling stone, and I must remove it if my book is to be complete. It's the problem of the day, and always haunts me when everything else is smooth."

"Do you mean the problem how to abolish sea sickness? For my