raised no further objection in my mind to entering on the task I had
promised my dead friend to undertake, there was only one course open
to me--namely, to write to Messrs. Geoffrey and Jordan, and express my
acceptance of the trust, stating that I should be willing to commence
my guardianship of Leo in ten days' time. This done I went to the
authorities of my college, and, having told them as much of the story
as I considered desirable, which was not very much, after considerable
difficulty succeeded in persuading them to stretch a point, and, in the
event of my having obtained a fellowship, which I was pretty certain
I had done, allow me to have the child to live with me. Their consent,
however, was only granted on the condition that I vacated my rooms
in college and took lodgings. This I did, and with some difficulty
succeeded in obtaining very good apartments quite close to the college
gates. The next thing was to find a nurse. And on this point I came to a
determination. I would have no woman to lord it over me about the child,
and steal his affections from me. The boy was old enough to do
without female assistance, so I set to work to hunt up a suitable male
attendant. With some difficulty I succeeded in hiring a most respectable
round-faced young man, who had been a helper in a hunting-stable, but
who said that he was one of a family of seventeen and well-accustomed to
the ways of children, and professed himself quite willing to undertake
the charge of Master Leo when he arrived. Then, having taken the iron
box to town, and with my own hands deposited it at my banker's, I bought
some books upon the health and management of children and read them,
first to myself, and then aloud to Job--that was the young man's
name--and waited.

At length the child arrived in the charge of an elderly person, who wept
bitterly at parting with him, and a beautiful boy he was. Indeed, I do
not think that I ever saw such a perfect child before or since. His eyes