FullReads

Then I told her of the scene I had just witnessed, of the arrival of the old pupil, the purchase of the tarts, the proclamation of the holiday, and the shouts of the boys of “Hurray, Davison!”

“WHO is it?” cried out Miss Raby, starting and turning as white as a sheet.

I told her it was Captain Davison from India; and described the appearance and behavior of the Captain. When I had finished speaking, she asked me to go and get her a glass of water; she felt unwell. But she was gone when I came back with the water.

I know all now. After sitting for a quarter of an hour with the Doctor, who attributed his guest’s uneasiness no doubt to his desire to see Miss Rosa Birch, Davison started up and said he wanted to see Miss Raby. “You remember, sir, how kind she was to my little brother, sir?” he said. Whereupon the Doctor, with a look of surprise, that anybody should want to see Miss Raby, said she was in the little school-room; whither the Captain went, knowing the way from old times.

A few minutes afterwards, Miss B. and Miss Z. returned from a drive with Plantagenet Gaunt in their one-horse fly, and being informed of Davison’s arrival, and that he was closeted with Miss Raby in the little school-room, of course made for that apartment at once. I was coming into it from the other door. I wanted to know whether she had drunk the water.

This is what both parties saw. The two were in this very attitude. “Well, upon my word!” cries out Miss Zoe; but Davison did not let go his hold; and Miss Raby’s head only sank down on his hand.

“You must get another governess, sir, for the little boys,” Frank Davison said to the Doctor. “Anny Raby has promised to come with me.”

You may suppose I shut to the door on my side. And when I returned to the little school-room, it was black and empty. Everybody was gone. I could hear the boys shouting at play in the green outside. The glass of water was on the table where I had placed it. I took it and drank it myself, to the health of Anny Raby and her husband. It was rather a choker.

But of course I wasn’t going to stop on at Birch’s. When his young friends reassemble on the 1st of February next, they will have two new masters. Prince resigned too, and is at present living with me at my old lodgings at Mrs. Cammysole’s. If any nobleman or gentleman wants a private tutor for his son, a note to the Rev. F. Prince will find him there.

Miss Clapperclaw says we are both a couple of old fools; and that she knew when I set off last year to Rodwell Regis, after meeting the two young ladies at a party at General Champion’s house in our street, that I was going on a goose’s errand. I shall dine there on Christmas-day; and so I wish a merry Christmas to all young and old boys.

EPILOGUE.

The play is done; the curtain drops,
Slow falling, to the prompter’s bell:
A moment yet the actor stops,
And looks around, to say farewell.
It is an irksome word and task;
And when he’s laughed and said his say,
He shows, as he removes the mask,
A face that’s anything but gay.

One word, ere yet the evening ends,
Let’s close it with a parting rhyme,
And pledge a hand to all young friends,
As fits the merry Christmas time.
On life’s wide scene you, too, have parts,
That Fate ere long shall bid you play;
Good night! with honest gentle hearts
A kindly greeting go alway!

Good night! I’d say the griefs, the joys,
Just hinted in this mimic page,
The triumphs and defeats of boys,
Are but repeated in our age.
I’d say, your woes were not less keen,
Your hopes more vain, than those of men,
Your pangs or pleasures of fifteen,
At forty-five played o’er again.