Cecil’s feelings may be better guessed than described when the return of Mudie’s box was hastened that he might have Motley’s Dutch Republic.  She thought this studiousness mere affectation; but it was indisputable that Terry’s soul was in books, and that he never was so happy as when turned loose into the library, dipping here and there, or with an elbow planted on either side of a folio.

Offers of gun or horse merely tormented him, and only his sister could drag him out by specious pleas of need, to help in those Christmas works, where she had much better assistance in Anne and the curates—­the one for clubs and coals, the other for decorations.

Mrs. Poynsett was Terry’s best friend.  He used to come to her in the evening and discuss what he had been reading till she was almost as keen about his success as Frank’s.  He talked over his ambition, of getting a scholarship, becoming a fellow, and living for ever among the books, for which the scanty supply in his wandering boyhood had but whetted his fervour.  He even confided to her what no one else knew but his sister Aileen, his epic in twenty-four books on Brian Boromhe and the Battle of Clontarf; and she was mother enough not to predict its inevitable fate, nor audibly to detect the unconscious plagiarisms, but to be a better listener than even Aileen, who never could be withheld from unfeeling laughter at the touching fate of the wounded warriors who were tied to stakes that they might die fighting.

Tom was a more ordinary youth, even more lazy and quiet in the house, though out of it he amazed Frank and Charlie by his dash, fire, and daring, and witched all the stable-world with noble horsemanship.  Hunting was prevented, however, by a frost, which filled every one with excitement as to the practicability of skating.

The most available water was a lake between Sirenwood and Compton; and here, like eagles to the slaughter, gathered, by a sort of instinct, the entire skating population of the neighbourhood on the first day that the ice was hard enough.  Rosamond was there, of course, with both her brothers, whom she averred, by a bold figure of speech, to have skated in Canada before they could walk.  Anne was there, studying the new phenomena of ice and snow under good-natured Charlie’s protection, learning the art with unexpected courage and dexterity.  Cecil was there but not shining so much, for her father had been always so nervous about his darling venturing on the ice, that she had no skill in the art; and as Raymond had been summoned to some political meeting, she had no special squire, as her young brother-in-law eluded the being enlisted in her service; and she began to decide that skating was irrational and unwomanly; although Lady Tyrrell had just arrived, and was having her skates put on; and Eleonora was only holding back because she was taking care of the two purple-legged, purple-faced, and purple-haired little Duncombes, whom she kept sliding in a corner, where they could hardly damage themselves or the ice.