“Johnnie and Cray were gone into the town on their grand new ponies, almost as big as horses; they came galloping home while we were there,” said Janie.

“And, father, they are going to show up their exercises, or something that they’ve done, to Grand tomorrow; you’ll hear them,” observed Hugh.

“But poor Cray was so ill on Saturday,” said the little girl, “that he couldn’t do nothing but lie in bed and write his poetry.”

“But they got on very well,” observed Bertram philosophically.  “They had up the stable-boy with a great squirt; he had to keep staring at Cray while Johnnie read aloud, and every time Cray winked he was to squirt Johnnie.  Cray didn’t have any dinner or any tea, and his face was so red.”

“Poor fellow!”

“Yes,” said the youngest boy, “and he wrote some verses about Johnnie, and said they were for him to read aloud to grandfather.  But what do you think?  Johnnie said he wouldn’t!  That doesn’t sound very kind, does it?”

Johnnie’s resolution, however, was not particularly remarkable; the verses, compounded during an attack of asthma, running as follows:—­

     AUGUSTUS JOHN CONFESSES TO LOSS OF APPETITE.

     I cannot eat rice pudding now,
     Jam roll, boiled beef, and such;
     From Stilton cheese this heart I vow
     Turns coldly as from Dutch.

     For crab, a shell-fish erst loved well,
     I do not care at all,
     Though I myself am in the shell
     And fellow-feelings call.

     I mourn not over tasks unsaid—­
     This child is not a flat—­
     My purse is empty as my head,
     But no—­it isn’t that;

     I cannot eat.  And why?  To shrink
     From truth is like a sinner,
     I’ll speak or burst; it is, I think,
     That I’ve just had my dinner.

Crayshaw was very zealous in the discharge of his promise; the ponies took a great deal of exercise; and old Grand, before the boys were dismissed to school, saw very decided and satisfactory progress on the part of his grandson, while the ponies were committed to his charge with a fervour that was almost pathetic.  It was hard to part from them; but men are tyrannical; they will not permit boys to have horses at a public school; the boys therefore returned to their work, and the ponies were relieved from theirs, and entered on a course of life which is commonly called eating their heads off.

John in the meanwhile tried in vain to supply the loss of the stately and erudite Miss Crampton.  He wanted two ladies, and wished that neither should be young.  One must be able to teach his children and keep them in order; the other must superintend the expenditure and see to the comforts of his whole household, order his children’s dress, and look after their health.

Either he was not fortunate in his applicants, or he was difficult to please, for he had not suited himself with either lady when a new source of occupation and anxiety sprung up, and everything else was set aside on account of it; for all on a sudden it was perceived one afternoon that Mr. Augustus Mortimer was not at all well.