get to the station by and by.”  So the doctor wrote a recipe with the astrological sign of Jupiter before it, (just as your own physician does, inestimable reader, as you will see, if you look at his next prescription,) and departed, saying he would look in occasionally.  After this, the Latin tutor began the usual course of “getting better,” until he got so much better that his face was very sharp, and when he smiled, three crescent lines showed at each side of his lips, and when he spoke, it was in a muffled whisper, and the white of his eye glistened as pearly as the purest porcelain,—­so much better, that he hoped—­by spring—­he——­might be able—­to—­attend——­to his class again.—­But he was recommended not to expose himself, and so kept his chamber, and occasionally, not having anything to do, his bed.  The unmarried sister with whom he lived took care of him; and the child, now old enough to be manageable, and even useful in trifling offices, sat in the chamber, or played about.

Things could not go on so forever, of course.  One morning his face was sunken and his hands very, very cold.  He was “better,” he whispered, but sadly and faintly.  After a while he grew restless and seemed a little wandering.  His mind ran on his classics, and fell back on the Latin grammar.

“Iris!” he said,—­“filiola mea!”—­The child knew this meant my dear little daughter as well as if it had been English.—­“Rainbow!”—­for he would translate her name at times, “come to me,—­veni”—­and his lips went on automatically, and murmured, “vel venito!”—­The child came and sat by his bedside and took his hand, which she could not warm, but which shot its rays of cold all through her slender frame.  But there she sat, looking steadily at him.  Presently he opened his lips feebly, and whispered, “Moribundus.” She did not know what that meant, but she saw that there was something new and sad.  So she began to cry; but presently remembering an old book that seemed to comfort him at times, got up and brought a Bible in the Latin version, called the Vulgate.  “Open it,” he said,—­“I will read,—­segnius irritant,—­don’t put the light out,—­ah! haeret lateri,—­I am going,—­vale, vale, vale, good-bye, good-bye,—­the Lord take care of my child!—­Domine, audi—­vel audito!” His face whitened suddenly, and he lay still, with open eyes and mouth.  He had taken his last degree.

——­Little Miss Iris could not be said to begin life with a very brilliant rainbow over her, in a worldly point of view.  A limited wardrobe of man’s attire, such as poor tutors wear,—­a few good books, especially classics,—­a print or two, and a plaster model of the Pantheon, with some pieces of furniture which had seen service,—­these, and a child’s heart full of tearful recollections and strange doubts and questions, alternating with the cheap pleasures which are the anodynes of childish grief; such were the treasures she inherited.—­No,—­I