Lenny Fairfield continued to give great satisfaction to his new employers, and to profit in many respects by the familiar kindness with which he was treated.

Riccabocca, who valued himself on penetrating into character, had from the first seen that much stuff of no common quality and texture was to be found in the disposition and mind of the English village boy.

On further acquaintance, he perceived that, under a child's innocent simplicity, there were the workings of an acuteness that required but development and direction.

He ascertained that the pattern-boy's progress at the village school proceeded from something more than mechanical docility and readiness of comprehension.

Lenny had a keen thirst for knowledge, and through all the disadvantages of birth and circumstance, there were the indications of that natural genius which converts disadvantages themselves into stimulants.