Louis' School Days

temper, and even playfulness, with which he bore the immoderate quizzing that fell to his lot, as a new boarder arrived in the middle of the half-year. If there were an errand to be run among the seniors, it was, " Louis Mortimer, will you get me this or that ?" if a dunce wanted helping, Louis was sure to be applied to, with the certainty in both cases that the requests would be complied with, though they might, as was too often the case, interfere with his duties ; but Louis had not courage to say no. In proportion, however, as our hero grew in the good graces of his school-fellows, he fell out of those of his masters, for lessons were brought only half-learned, and exercises only half-written, or blotted and scrawled so as to be nearly unintelligible ; and after he had been a fortnight at school, he seemed much more likely to descend to a lower class than to mount a step in his own. Day after day saw Louis kept in the school-room during play-hours, to learn lessons which ought to have been done the night before, orto write out some long imposition as a punishment for some neglected duty that had given place to the desire of assisting another. Louis always seemed in a hurry, and never did any thing well. His mind was unsettled, and, like every thing else belonging to him at present, in a state of undesirable confusion. There was one resource which Louis had which would have set all to rights, but his weakness of disposition often prevented him from taking ...