Strangely enough, both partners in the firm which had prosecuted Mr.Wood were dead.

Their successors offered him employment, but he could not face the old associations.

I believe he found it so hard to face any one, that this was the reason of his staying at home for a time and helping in the school.

I don't think we boys made him uncomfortable as grown-up strangers seemed to do, and he was particularly fond of Cripple Charlie.
This brought me into contact with him, for Charlie and I were great friends.

He was as well pleased to be read to out of the Penny Numbers as the bee-master, and he was interested in things of which Isaac Irvine was completely ignorant.
Our school was a day-school, but Charlie had been received by Mrs.Wood as a boarder.