174 THE WIFE OF THOMAS CAELYLE. declared that he would flog the whole school if he was not told the culprit's name. It was well known that he would keep his word ; but still no one spoke until Jeannie, the smallest, most fairy-like of little girls, looked up and announced : " Please, it was I." Severity was impossible. The teacher tried to keep his countenance, failed, burst out laughing, called her " a little devil," and bade her go her ways to the girls' room. Soon afterward the school changed masters ; Edward Irving, a young man freshly laden with college honors, came to Haddington to teach. Besides having her in his classes at the school, he was entrusted with the care of her more private education. He directed her reading, assisted her in her studies, taught her astronomy on star- light nights, and introduced her to Vergil. Vergil was to her, as he has been to so many others, an inspiring revelation. She read, studied, declaimed the poet with passionate delight. She tried to conform her own life to the Roman model. When she was tempted to commit an unworthy act, she said to herself with sternness, " A Roman would not have done it." When she gallantly caught by the neck and flung aside a hissing gander of which she had long stood in dread, she felt that she " deserved well of the Republic," and merited a civil crown. Furthermore, having become convinced that a doll was now beneath her dignity, she burned her ancient favorite, with all its dresses and its cherished four-post bed, upon a funeral pyre, constructed of " a fagot or two of cedar allumettes, a few sticks of cinnamon, and a nut- meg." Then, delivering with much emphasis and solem- nity the dying words of Dido in their original tongue, the doll (with Jeannie's assistance), kindled the pyre, stabbed herself with a penknife, and a moment later, being stuffed with sawdust and highly combustible, was in a fine blaze,
