'No doubt,' says Ford, 'it will excite a mysterious interest,' but then he adds in effect it will lead to a wrong construction being put upon the omission.

Well, there can be but one interpretation, and that not an unnatural one.

Borrow had a very rough time during these eight years.

His vanity was hurt, and no wonder.

It seems a small matter to us now that Charles Dickens should have been ashamed of the blacking-bottle episode of his boyhood.