THE APPRENTICE UNDER THE SHADOW. 35 



the sympathy of his good mistress, whose patience under 

 similar sorrows was an example and a support, and whose 

 kindness was secretly and substantially increased on every 

 renewed outburst of her husband. Her influence over the 

 lad in other ways was unusually high and important. Her 

 intelligence was far above common. She had an excep- 

 tional taste for reading, which she had sedulously culti- 

 vated. She possessed more books than most in the 

 village, and she was reckoned "a terrible scholar." Her 

 memory was so good that she could recite long pieces of 

 prose and poetry from her varied reading. She had even 

 been impelled to express her crowding thoughts in not un- 

 musical verse, and she still sustains the reputation of having 

 been a poetess, a couplet said to be hers being still pre- 

 served : 



" If health were a thing that money could buy, 

 The rich would live and the poor would die." 



Then, fortunately for the comfort of both, and especially 

 for John's higher culture, their taskmaster was often from 

 home, and they had happy days together, working, talking, 

 reciting, and reading, when John became somewhat pro- 

 ficient in that art. This communion must have been 

 of inestimable value to the expanding head and heart 

 of the lad, and formed an important element in John's 

 education. He could not have come under higher and 

 sweeter influence in this the most susceptible period of his 

 life, and it no doubt permanently moulded him for good. 

 His case is a remarkable example of the compensations to 

 be found in every lot, however untoward and sad. 



But, alas ! one dark winter day, this cheering beam was 

 suddenly quenched. John and she were busily engaged 



