Long Hard Days at Twist End; or, Mr. H. Cuff, the Old Pupil-teacher, and his Pupils_ 42 CHAPTER II _The Head of the Family: Young Mr. Cuff, and his Friends, 64 including Mr. Spavin_ CHAPTER III _The Vicar's Daughter: Love and Hatred; or, The Maiden Widow; or, The Young Pretender: A Little Boy's Adventures after Dark_ 76 CHAPTER IV _Woman's Gratitude: Mr. Cuff's Daughter; or, The Revolt of Mrs. Spavin_ 87 CHAPTER V _Mr. Cuff's Revenge: The Wreck and the Runaways; or, The Old Pupil- teacher's Temptation; or, The Revolt of Mr. Spavin; or, The Little Boy's Perplexities_ 103 CHAPTER VI _The Doctor's Mistake: Mr. Bumpkin's Daughter; or, The Pupil-teacher's Agreeable Surprise; or, The Little Boy's Escape_ 118 CHAPTER VII _At Tailors'-Hall: Mr. Cuff's Pupils; or, The Young Pretender; or, Mr. Spavin's Amours_ 133 CHAPTER VIII _The Pupil-teacher and his Pupil: School-fellows; or, Mr. Spavin's Aimless Out-door Amusements_ 147 CHAPTER IX _Mr. Cuff's School-Days: The Young Pretender; or, The Second Return_ 159 CHAPTER X _The Retirement of Mr. Spavin: The Doctor's Daughter; or, The Last Disappointment_ 168 CHAPTER XI _Mr. Cuff's Farewell: or, The Old Pupil-teacher, and his Friend Mr. Bumpkin_ 180 CHAPTER XII _The New Pupil-teacher: A Little Boy's Adventures in Roughs, and Ruts, and in Dark Streets, and in Prison_ 187 CHAPTER XIII _Mr. Spavin's Last Will and Testament; or, The New Pupil-teacher's Experiments on Human Nature_ 197 CHAPTER XIV _A Morning Walk: Mr. Cuff's New School; or, The Old Pupil-teacher's Grand-children; or, The Young Pretender and his Companion_ 205 CHAPTER XV _A Midnight Scene: Old Mrs. Spavin's Ghost; or, The Return of Mr. Cuff to New Academy; or, The Old Pupil-teacher's Legacy_ 216 CHAPTER I 'THE MAIDEN WIDOW'S' FIRST APPEARANCE _Wherein a certain female person, who has never been seen, is introduced to the reader, in a style calculated to excite astonishment_ Mr. John Spavin lived at home, with his mother and his sister, and a sister's husband, in the small village of Plumstead;--there being not more than half a dozen streets, scattered about, and containing, with the church and the mill, which was within half a mile of the centre of the hamlet, as many families as made the place respectable in the eyes of its population, and perhaps a little more in proportion to its circumstances, than many of them are in more extensive places. Mrs. Spavin was not altogether an old woman. She was not very young either, nor very old, nor much in the middle; but she was certainly an old woman, and she had been a widow for many years. The sister and the husband, too, were something older than the rest of the family. The three men were all tall, and lean, and ugly; and the sister, as has been already said, was tall and lean, and ugly; but the other man was very tall, and thin, and ugly. The sister was the sister of Mrs. Spavin, which makes it probable that the niece must have been the daughter of the niece, though we have not heard that there was any such near relative. Mrs. Spavin was in all things--with reference, at least, to her friends and her neighbours--perfectly upright, both in feeling and in act, in a word she was a good woman. With reference to her niece and nephew, she was very severe, believing that a good woman ought to be severe. She was also very jealous of her husband, and was of opinion that a good woman ought to be jealous. A woman, if she could possibly be so made, should never marry the best man in the world for the sake of a hundred guineas. But she did not like to see her sister's husband, so she said, talking with the old man; and as she looked upon her own husband as the most good-natured, most obliging, most benevolent, and the most respectable of men, she was of opinion that he, too, would be in the right to quarrel with her niece. The truth was, that the cousin, by which name the man was always called, was in love with the niece, and had been so from a very early period in life, when he had been sent from the neighbourhood, to go to the expense of sending him to school. This had been done early in the lady's life, which made it natural, when so great a change should take place in her appearance, for those who lived near her to think about other things besides the great change which had been made in her appearance. It is often so natural for those who watch the progress of that most wonderful of all the works of God to think about other things than the progress of the wonderful work of the great Physician. Men, and women too, love to see nature in her operations, and to see everybody's concern about nothing but their own concerns. Mrs. Spavin always thought that her niece was very foolish, and it became natural to her and to her sister to think that the cousin was very foolish. And so he was. We are not told whether Mrs. Spavin had any sons, nor whether the husband had ever married before. Her sister had a daughter, who was married, and the wife was called Mrs. Spavinet. She was a very good woman, as became a mother of an only child; but she was no companion for the mother, and, though she lived in the same village with her, and she visited her every day, and had for her all those claims of affection which friendship, though not blood, creates, still the old lady felt that something was wanting in her life. Why should she not have had sons? why should there not be some one to look after the estate,--for she certainly had an estate; and if one could have looked upon the sadness of the little grey cottage and have heard the old woman talking to herself as she sat on her bed, one might perhaps have made some guesses as to her dreams. And if one would have looked upon her countenance when sitting by her own hearth, one would have seen that she loved to look at the fire, and on the roof of her cottage. The truth was, however, that Mrs. Spavin had never been blessed with more than five sons. The reader will understand from all this that John Spavin, the father, was a good, respectable man;--that his wife was a good woman;--and that their niece was of a more than common degree of beauty. The reader will also understand that Mrs. Spavin, though not exactly of an ordinary size, was a stout person for a woman, and that she sat very upright in her chair, and that she was not only stout but long-bodied. They have travelled in the course of this story from one country to another, and perhaps from England into another country; but we have taken it for granted that they lived at Plumstead, within half a mile of the churches, and the town-hall, and the great mill. The old lady was very angry with her niece, on the morning we are speaking of, not being at the cottage when the day's dinner should be ready. It was a fine day. Such days, with such skies, are fine, and no man can say that he has had such a day if he has not had one of them. Heaven and earth did not fight on such a day; the very winds and the waters were still; and the grass, and the trees, and the green leaves, grew stiller too. Such weather as that is not allowed for nothing, and the people of that day called such a day a day of the