We have two or three young people with us who stand a fair chance of furnishing us the element without which life and tea-tables alike are wanting in interest.  We are all, of course, watching them, and curious to know whether we are to have a romance or not.  Here is one of them; others will show themselves presently.

I cannot say just how old the Tutor is, but I do not detect a gray hair in his head.  My sight is not so good as it was, however, and he may have turned the sharp corner of thirty, and even have left it a year or two behind him.  More probably he is still in the twenties,—­say twenty-eight or twenty-nine.  He seems young, at any rate, excitable, enthusiastic, imaginative, but at the same time reserved.  I am afraid that he is a poet.  When I say “I am afraid,” you wonder what I mean by the expression.  I may take another opportunity to explain and justify it; I will only say now that I consider the Muse the most dangerous of sirens to a young man who has his way to make in the world.  Now this young man, the Tutor, has, I believe, a future before him.  He was born for a philosopher,—­so I read his horoscope,—­but he has a great liking for poetry and can write well in verse.  We have had a number of poems offered for our entertainment, which I have commonly been requested to read.  There has been some little mystery about their authorship, but it is evident that they are not all from the same hand.  Poetry is as contagious as measles, and if a single case of it break out in any social circle, or in a school, there are certain to be a number of similar cases, some slight, some serious, and now and then one so malignant that the subject of it should be put on a spare diet of stationery, say from two to three penfuls of ink and a half sheet of notepaper per diem.  If any of our poetical contributions are presentable, the reader shall have a chance to see them.

It must be understood that our company is not invariably made up of the same persons.  The Mistress, as we call her, is expected to be always in her place.  I make it a rule to be present.  The Professor is almost as sure to be at the table as I am.  We should hardly know what to do without Number Five.  It takes a good deal of tact to handle such a little assembly as ours, which is a republic on a small scale, for all that they give me the title of Dictator, and Number Five is a great help in every social emergency.  She sees when a discussion tends to become personal, and heads off the threatening antagonists.  She knows when a subject has been knocking about long enough and dexterously shifts the talk to another track.  It is true that I am the one most frequently appealed to as the highest tribunal in doubtful cases, but I often care more for Number Five’s opinion than I do for my own.  Who is this Number Five, so fascinating, so wise, so full of knowledge, and so ready to learn?  She is suspected of being the anonymous author of a book which produced a sensation