If any one had told me two days ago that it would be reserved to an
assistant teacher in a girls' school to inspire me with an ardent
interest in Latin and arithmetic I should have laughed him to scorn.
Miss Steele, however, succeeded in achieving the impossible. I am bound
to confess that my new-born ardour was not mainly due to affection for
the dead language in question, or even to esteem for my preceptress.
But the idea of taking Low Heath, so to speak, by storm, had fairly
roused my ambition. The glory of rising superior to my fate, of shaking
off the ill-tutored Mr Evans and his works, and rejoining my old
school-comrade with all the prestige of a fellow-exhibitioner,
captivated my imagination and steeled me to the endurance of hardships
of which I had hitherto conceived myself utterly incapable.
Miss Steele had no notion of letting me off my bargain. She procured
particulars of the examinations, and very formidable appeared the list
of subjects as we conned them. Still she was firm in her belief that I
could do it if I only worked, and since her eagerness fully equalled my
own, there was not much chance of my work dropping slack.
If any other incentive was wanted it was the supreme discomfort of my
position at my guardian's office.
My comrades there persistently misunderstood me.
They put me down as an opiniated young prig, with whom all sorts of
liberties might be taken, and out of whom it was lawful, for their own
amusement, to take unlimited "rise."