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though only eighteen months his senior, was slinging through the sixth standard work with his usual alert and sprightly ease while he, William, was still plodding patiently on in the second. John, his junior by thirteen months, had learned the printing business and had got tired of it, and had "listed for a soldier" while he, William, was still labouring painfully as a second-rate hand. Tom, his elder by three years, had cut him out with Mary Denyer, and had married her, while he, William, was still thinking about speaking to her. "My boy," he said exultantly to William, as he left with his wife for Australia, "I am going to show you and the others something, I am! You wait a few years, that's all!" William only grasped his hand silently, and gripped Mary's with the other, and turned away from the vessel without saying a word.

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John clapped William on the back as he bade him good-bye, before joining his regiment. guess I'll show you what a smart soldier can reach to," he said. "I reckon to come out serjeantmajor at the very lowest. As for you, William, your place is at home. You wouldn't do any good for yourself a-fighting with the world. Good-bye, old chap! You'll be all right if you stick to your work!

So William, the "slow 'un," the "stay-at-home," had been left alone, save for his mother, whose

sole support he became. She had originally been a housemaid in good service, had his mother. She had married a carpenter and joiner, a slow-going lumbering honest man, who had supported his family comfortably enough until he had fallen ill of a slow and painful disease. Then it had fallen to her share to keep the home going, and this she had bravely done by laundry work on a small scale in her own back kitchen. Her husband died after a three years' illness, and it was ever her pride, to the last day of her life, that she had vindicated the family honour and respectability, evil days notwithstanding, by giving him a "ninepun-ten funeral"-all "off her own hand." She was forced to pawn her mourning a week after the burial had taken place, but that was a small matter compared with the pride of having paid her Jim the last token of respect on a scale which had hitherto never been known in the court, and is spoken of there with veneration to this day.

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William's life was a very prosaic one. There is absolutely nothing to narrate in it in the way what would be looked upon as incident. He lived all his days in the little back street in Stoke Newington. He grew to love the place with a

dumb unconscious kind of love. There was а homeliness about it which was in perfect accord with the homeliness of his own nature. He never realised his affection for the house until, in after years, his daughters proposed that they should remove to a more pretentious road. I have rarely met a man who was more unconscious of his own feelings and characteristics than William. It was only when the idea of removing was mooted that he looked up at the grey blank-faced brownshuttered little house with a surging of the heart.

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"No, no, William," she said; "I'm all right! I can go on for a few years yet, please God!" "You are going to give it up," replied William decisively. "You've had enough work for a lifetime. There, don't cry, mother! You've had hard days, but that's no reason why there shouldn't be a bit of happiness in store for yet."

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And so a revolution took place in the household -a revolution so great that William's mother could hardly realise it. For the first time for many long years she knew what rest was; and she used to cry silently to herself, for very peace and quiet and happiness, as she sat, a bowed figure, prematurely aged, through the drowsy afternoons, in her armchair by the open window which looked out on the little grass-plot at the back of the house. William was considerably troubled about this time in respect to one thing. He was very loth to leave his mother alone through the long day; for his place of employment was in Farringdon Street, and he could not get home to the mid-day meal. This question, after much ponderous deliberation in his slow way, he settled finally by engaging a small maid, aged about thirteen, to wait upon his mother and keep her company during the day. Her name was Amelia Biggs, and she was known to herself and all around her

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as 'Melia. She was very diminutive, very sharp, very pert, very plucky, very short as to temper, and very affectionate in a hidden, shamefaced kind of way, as though it were with a keen sense of disgrace that she recognised this weakness in herself. She used to make up for it by acrimonious and autocratic mien, which, sidering her size, was distinctly ludicrous. could not have assumed more high-and-mightiness if she had been five-feet-ten. As it was her height was somewhere about four feet. She was looked upon as incorrigible by her parents. She had knocked her father on the head with a jug because in a drunken rage he was beating her crippled mother. She had also thrown a small stone at a fat policeman and had hit him in the back, because he was running after her younger brother, who had been fighting on Stoke Newington Green. She was an inveterate truant, and would do nothing for any teacher in the school save one, whom she obeyed for the reason that "she's never saucy like the rest on 'em." Her likes and dislikes were determined by the most whimsical chances and standards of judgment. As already shown, she did not like certain of the school teachers because they spoke saucy to her. She did not like another because she had red hair. She took an immediate fancy to William's mother because she had a mole on her cheek like

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her ('Melia's) aunt. Whom she loved she ruled over with tyrannical despotism. Ere one week had gone by, William's mother was completely under her sway. She was not allowed to rise from her chair, even to take up a book, unless 'Melia, of her own imperial condescension, permitted her.

"There! Didn' I tell yer not to sit by the winder! I never seed such a 'ooman. Sitting in the draught, o' course! Come back at onct to the fire! Now didn' I tell yer as yer wasn' to read in such a bad light! I s'pose yer wants to git rid o' yer eyes don't yer! Thinks yer can git another pair, I s'pose. I never seed such a 'ooman."

She was an epicurean in work. She used to pass round the house like a veritable whirlwind. Especially did she throw her impetuous energy into the cleaning of the fire-irons. "It was O nice to see 'em git shiny-like, as if they was smilin' at yer." She quarrelled with William's mother every day because she would put her feet on the fender after it was cleaned. Each reproof was followed by a smacking kiss ("right on the mole") which completely smothered the old lady's expostulations, and at last rendered her utterly submissive.

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William, too, fell under 'Melia's rule. It was his misfortune that she took a liking to him because he was his mother's son; and as a consequence he became the subject of her despotic sway. It was about this time that he realised that he was too deficient in his education, too weak in his spelling, too shaky in his punctuation, to make a good compositor. Hence he took to laborious studying of an evening, and began to ponder in his heavy stertorous manner over a dog-eared grammar and spelling-book. 'Melia must of course have finger in the pie! She must know what William was up to! Directly she did know she began to dictate to him as to how he was to proceed. She bothered him a good deal by her interference, and once or twice he grew irascible. He wanted to put his head upon his hands and work through it in his own grinding mechanical way. But after one or two sharp passages he discovered, to his bewilderment, that 'Melia was right and he was wrong. Somehow, after a rapid glance at the page, she knew more than he could "get into his head" in an hour. This piqued him somewhat at first; then it filled him with a vague sort of wonder and admiration. Then he, too, became submissive, and openly consulted her. Then they took to sitting down at the table together. Was there ever such a swift learner as 'Melia ! She had grasped the whole sense of the paragraph before William had even got over the reading of the mere words. She went forward like a shooting star, leaving him blundering and groping behind in a dazed and breathless fashion.

But the evening work told at last. William was nothing if not persevering. He had meekly accepted 'Melia as his teacher long since. And when he came home one evening, three years after their first lesson, and announced that he had been appointed foreman of the printing office, he gave the credit, like the honest fellow he was, to 'Melia.

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"I owe most of it to you, 'Melia," he said. "You've helped me well. I'm that slow myself, I car.'t get through things as quickly as you. The governor said to me to-day, William, you've improved wonderfully. You are slow, but you are steady in your work, and whatever you do is thorough. I'm well pleased with you, William. You've served me faithfully, and I'm going to make you foreman.'"

'Melia, for once in her life, had nothing to say. She had gone over to the window, and was standing there, with her back to William and kis mother.

"Come, 'Melia ! Aren't you glad?" said William. Oh, stupid William !

The years passed on, and at last a big turn came in the affairs of the little household. Death again stepped in, quietly, tenderly, even as the kiss of the wind. When 'Melia came in from a short errand, William's mother was sitting back in her chair with a smile on her face, sleeping her last sleep. There had been no struggle. She had simply ceased to breathe. It was a source of unspeakable comfort to William, as he looked upon her dead face, that he had never wittingly, by word or deed, caused her a moment's pain. She was buried with all due honour, even as she had buried her husband years agone. William wrote as in duty bound to all his brothers, and received in reply unctuous letters of sympathy; but not one of them came to the funeral. "I guess if I went up," said James to his wife, in Bradford, "as William 'ud only want to borrow. They can't be any too well off. He's such a slow-coach, is William !"

When William came home from the funeral, the little sitting room was empty. Why was 'Melia not there? A sense of desolation fell heavily upon him. The room was so still, so strange, so weirdly silent. He looked at the vacant armchair by the window, and quickly turning to the fireplace, bowed his head upon the mantelpiece. As he stood there he felt a touch on his arm. 'Melia had stolen timidly into the room and was standing by him, her eyes full of dumb distressful solicitude. Her face was pale and wet with tears, and her black mourning dress caused her to look smaller and slighter than ever. He turned towards her with a sharp agonised action.

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'Melia," he said, you are the only friend I've got left in the wide world. My brothers are all scattered about. If you leave me, 'MeliaHe could get no further. The very words opened a prospect of such grey dreariness.

She had burst into sobs so passionate that her little frame shook and trembled. He took her small hands in his.

"Melia," he said again, "I'm a slow-going man. I haven't got much to recommend me to any woman. But, please God, I'll make you a good husband, if you can find it in your heart to marry me. Oh, my little girl, I can't do without you

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She looked up at him, then, through her tears, straight and quick and brave, like the 'Melia of old.

"I don't want you to do without me, William,” she said.

A great wave of thankfulness swept through William's heart.

"God has been very good to me," he murmured. "He gave me a good mother, and now He has given me a good wife."

And that was what 'Melia was to him. Throughout the long dusty way of life she kept his home bright and trim and looked after his interests, and carefully tended her children, and proved a faithful wife and mother in things great and small. How sharp she was in all housekeeping matters; how lynx-eyed with the tradesmen; how keen in her judgment as to the laying out of the household funds! Somehow William learned to lean upon her as the years went on; and somehow he grew in character, grew stronger, more reliant, more decisive in his judgment. And somehow his wife altered too; for she was quieter, gentler, more restrained in manner than she had been in the days of old. It was undoubtedly the influence of each upon the other that worked the change. Their marriage could not fail to be a happy one, for it was built upon a mutual understanding and forbearance. William's strong patient nature was ever a strong rock of refuge and protection to his wife. Her vivacity, her quickness, her perceptive powers were ever an inspiration and a source of energy to him. Sothe days sped on, and William grew grey, and 'Melia middle-aged, and a family of sturdy boys. and girls sprang up around them.

No one could have traced the steps by which William grew to prominence in his neighbourhood! William grow to prominence! The idea would have been almost ludicrous had not the growth been so gradual, so imperceptible in its very deliberation. First he was elected an officer of the benefit society to which he belonged. Two years later he was made superintendent of the Sunday-school in which he had been a faithful teacher for fifteen years. Three years later he was proposed and seconded as sidesman at the small mission church to which the Sunday-school was attached, and in which he, his wife and his family had worshipped, year in, year out, for twenty years. Still later on some trouble arose in the printing office. There was a dispute among the men. It is to this day admitted on all hands that to William was due the chief credit of averting disaster. He stood out as a veritable fingerpost of counsel and restraining wisdom. He spoke out strenuously, and with perfect fearlessness. His good judgment, his moderation, his sound common-sense, his pithy sentences, all marked by such absolute freedom from bias or bitterness, told quickly. One by one, and two by two, the men saw the force of his arguments, and peace was restored.

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The same good common-sense marked every thing that he said or did. All his utterances, slow and disjointed though they were, bore the stamp of ripe deliberation and forethought. was never necessary for William to eat his words. It became known everywhere by degrees; at the Sunday-school; at the friendly society meetings; at the printing office; that his judgment was

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