Weekly commercial herald. (Vicksburg, Miss.) 1884-18??, 1885-10-09
but, you dear old man, what haze you got
q. -. IL - MI

"But, you dear old man, vhat haze you got
IN your head to-nightP"
~ was only thinking" he said, shat
perhaps you might be so much happier"
"Happierf Nonsense! am as happy as
I can be. Six pupils already. To be sure 1
have lost one" she sighed; ''and the best
among them all"
When her grandfather left her Iris placed
candles On the writing table, but did not
light them, though 1t was already pretty
dark. She had half an hour to wait; and
she wanted to think, and candles are not
necessary for meditation. She. sat at the
open window and suffered her thoughts to
ramble where they pleased. This is a rest
full thing to do, especially if your windows
look Upon a tolerably busy but not noisy
London road. For then it is almost as
good as sitting beside a swiftly running
stream; the movement of the people below
is like the unceasing flow of the current;
the sound of the footsteps Is like the whisper
OF the water along the bank; the echo of the
half heard talk strikes your ear like the mys-
ferrous voices waited to the banks from the
boats-as they go by and the lights of the
shops and the street presently become spec
trail and unreal like lights seen upon the
river in the evening.
Iris had a good many p~upils-six. in
fact, as she had boosted; why, then, was
she so strangely disturbed on account Of
onel M
An old tutor by correspondence may be.
and very likely is, Indifferent about his
pupils, because he has had so many; but Iris
was a young tutor, and had as yet known
Few. One Of her pupils, for instance, was a
gentleman in the fruit and potato line in the
borough. By reason of his early education,
which had not been neglected so much as en-.
tlrely omitted, he was unable to personally
conduct his accounts. Now O merchant
without his accounts Is as helpless as a tour
iOt without his Cook. So that he desired. in
his mature age, to learn bookkeeping. COM
pound addition, subtraction and multipli-
cation. He had no partners, so that he did
rot want division. But it is dificult-sav
we'll nigh impossible-for a middle-aped
merchant not trained in the graces of letter
writing, to inspire a young lady with per-
sonal regard, even though she is privileged
to follow the current Of his thoughts day by
day and 10 set him his sums.
Next there was a young fellow of nine.
teen or twenty, who was beginning life as
an assistant teacher In a commercial school
at Lower Clapton. This way is a stony and
a thorny path to tread; no one walks upon
it Willingly; those who are compelled TO
enter upon it speedily either run awav and
enlist, or they go and frd a secluded snot in
which to hang themselves. The smoother
ways OF the profession are only to be entered
by one who is the possessor of a degree. and
1t was the determination Of this young man
to pass the London University examina-
lions, and obtain the degree of Bachelor.
In this way his value in the educational
market would be at once doubled, and he
could command a better place and LIGHTER
work. He showed himself, in his letters. to
he an eminently practical, shrewd, selfish
and thick-skinned young man, who would
quite certainly get on in the world, and
was resolved to lose no opportunities.
and, with that view, he took as much
work out Of his tutor as he could oct
Tor tho money. Had he known that
the 81. A" who took such a wonder
ful amount Of trouble with his papers was
only q woman, he would certainly have ex-
uorted a great deal more work for his money.
All this Iris read in his letters and under
stood. There is no way in which a man
more surely and more naturally reveals his
true character than in his correspondence
20 That after a while, even though the sub
goct of the letters be nothing more interest
Ing than the studies in hand, those who
write the letters may learn to know each
other If they have but the mother wit to |
read between the lines. Certainly this Young
schoclmaster did not know Iris, nor did he
desire to discover What she was like, being
wholly occupied with the study of himself
Strange and kindly provision of nature, The
less desirable a man actually appears to
others, the more fondly he loves and be-
lleVes In himself. l have heard it whispered
that Narcissus was a hunchback.
Then there was another pupil, a girl VIII
vas working her very hardest in order To he.
come, as she hoped, a first-class governess
who, poor thing, by reason of natural
thickness would never reach even the third
rank. Iris would have been sorry for her
because she worked SO iercely and was So
but there was something hard and
unsympathetic In her nature which forbade
pity. She was miserably poor, too. and had
unsuccessful father, no doubt as st,1niJ
as herself, and made pitifuI excnsos
for not forwarding the slender fees with
regularity.
Everybody who is poor should be, on that
ground alone, worthy of pity and sympathy.
But the hardness, and stupidity, and iil-tem.
per, all combined and clearly shown in her
letters, repelled her tutor. Iris, who drew
Imaginary portraits of her pupils, pictured
tie girl as plain to look upon, with a dull
eye. a leathery, pallid cheek, a forehead
without sunshine upon it, and lips which sell
dom parted with q smile.
Then there was, besides, a Cambridge I'm.
corgraduate. He was neither clever. nor
industrious, nor very ambitious be thought