Andrewes every day.
Thenceforward I progressed rapidly in my learning. Mr. Andrewes was a
good scholar, and (quite another matter) a good teacher; and I fancy
that I was not wanting in quickness or in willingness to work. But
Latin, and arithmetic, and geography, and the marvellous improvement
he soon made in my handwriting, were small parts indeed of all that I
owe to that good friend of my childhood. I suppose that--other things
being equal--children learn most from those who love them best, and I
soon found out that I was the object of a strangely strong affection
in my new teacher. The chief cause of this I did not then know, and
only learnt when death had put an end, for this life, to our happy
intercourse. But I had a child's complacent appreciation of the fact
that I was a favourite, and on the strength of it I haunted the
Rectory at all hours, confident of a welcome. I turned over the
Rector's books, and culled his flowers, and joined his rides, and made
him tell me stories, and tyrannized over him as over a docile
playfellow in a fashion that astonished many grown-up people who were
awed and repelled by his reserve and eccentricities, and who never
knew his character as I knew it till he could be known no more.
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