looked out upon the market-place; so the studies for the prosecution of which my father had brought himself to pay extra for a sitting-room for me, ran a considerable chance of being diverted from books to men and women.  I was to have my meals with the two elderly Miss Dawsons in the little parlour behind the three-cornered shop downstairs; my breakfasts and dinners at least, for, as my hours in an evening were likely to be uncertain, my tea or supper was to be an independent meal.

Then, after this pride and satisfaction, came a sense of desolation.  I had never been from home before, and I was an only child; and though my father’s spoken maxim had been, ’Spare the rod, and spoil the child’, yet, unconsciously, his heart had yearned after me, and his ways towards me were more tender than he knew, or would have approved of in himself could he have known.  My mother, who never professed sternness, was far more severe than my father:  perhaps my boyish faults annoyed her more; for I remember, now that I have written the above words, how she pleaded for me once in my riper years, when I had really offended against my father’s sense of right.

But I have nothing to do with that now.  It is about cousin Phillis that I am going to write, and as yet I am far enough from even saying who cousin Phillis was.

For some months after I was settled in Eltham, the new employment in which I was engaged—­the new independence of my life—­occupied all my thoughts.  I was at my desk by eight o’clock, home to dinner at one, back at the office by two.  The afternoon work was more uncertain than the morning’s; it might be the same, or it might be that I had to accompany Mr Holdsworth, the managing engineer, to some point on the line between Eltham and Hornby.  This I always enjoyed, because of the variety, and because of the country we traversed (which was very wild and pretty), and because I was thrown into companionship with Mr Holdsworth, who held the position of hero in my boyish mind.  He was a young man of five-and-twenty or so, and was in a station above mine, both by birth and education; and he had travelled on the Continent, and wore mustachios and whiskers of a somewhat foreign fashion.  I was proud of being seen with him.  He was really a fine fellow in a good number of ways, and I might have fallen into much worse hands.

Every Saturday I wrote home, telling of my weekly doings—­my father had insisted upon this; but there was so little variety in my life that I often found it hard work to fill a letter.  On Sundays I went twice to chapel, up a dark narrow entry, to hear droning hymns, and long prayers, and a still longer sermon, preached to a small congregation, of which I was, by nearly a score of years, the youngest member.  Occasionally, Mr Peters, the minister, would ask me home to tea after the second service.  I dreaded the honour, for I usually sate on the edge of my chair all the evening, and answered solemn questions,