“COMING EVENTS CAST THEIR SHADOWS BEFORE.”
The next morning, with many painful recollections, brought one of pleasure; I remembered that it was the King’s Birthday, and in a fit of very sincere loyalty, gave the whole school, alas! reduced by one half, a whole holiday. Thus I got over the end of the week, and Sunday, literally a day of rest, was spent by the urchins at their own homes. It may seem sinful to wish for the death of a fellow-creature, but I could not help thinking of G——’s relative along with what is called a happy release; and he really was so kind, as we learned by an express from G——, as to break up just after his arrival, and that G—— consequently would return in time to resume his scholastic duties on the Monday morning. With infinite pleasure I heard this good bad news from Mrs. G——, who never interfered in the classical part of the house, and was consequently all unconscious of the reduction in the Spring Grove Establishment. I forged an excuse for immediately leaving off school; “resigned I kissed the rod” that I resigned, and as I departed, no master but my own, was overwhelmed by a torrent of grateful acknowledgments of the service I had done the school, which, as Mrs. G—— protested, could never have got on without me. How it got on I left G—— to discover, and I am told he behaved rather like Macduff at the loss of his “little ones”—but luckily, I had given myself warning before his arrival, and escaped from one porch of the Academy at that nick of time when the Archodidasculus was entering by another, perfectly convinced that, however adapted to “live and learn,” I should never be able to live and teach.
THE LOST HEIR.
“Oh, where, and oh where
Is my bonny laddie gone?”—OLD SONG.
ONE day, as I was going by
That part of Holborn christened High,