was always ready to help them with their Latin or their sums, whose
answers he seemed to find by magic, almost.




CHAPTER IV.


During the winter before Edgar went to Stoke-Newington, he had attended
an "infant school," in Richmond, taught by a somewhat gaunt, but
mild-mannered spinster, with big spectacles over her amiable blue eyes,
a starchy cap and a little bunch of frosty cork-screw curls on each side
of her face. As a child, she had played with Mr. Allan's father on their
native heath, in Ayrshire, and to her, little Edgar was always her "ain
wee laddie." She had spoiled him inordinately and unblushingly. Also, as
she contentedly drew at the pipe filled with the offerings of choice
smoking-tobacco which he frequently turned out of his pockets into her
lap, she had taught him to read in her own broad Scottish accent, and to
cypher.

She had furthermore drilled him in making "pothooks and hangers," with
which he covered his slate in neat rows, daily. But it was at the Manor
House, in Stoke-Newington, that he was initiated into the mysteries of
writing. His hands were as shapely as a girl's, with deft, taper fingers
that seemed made to hold a pen or brush, and he soon developed a neat,
small, but beautifully clear and graceful hand-writing.

This new accomplishment became at once a delight to him, and as time
went on opened a new world to Edgar the Dreamer, who now began, when he