“I will.  But, James, Leila will half kill him.  He is so thin and pale.  He looks hardly older than she does.”  Then Ann rose, saying, “Well, we shall see, I suppose you are right,” and after some talk about the iron-works left him to his pipe.

When she returned to the hall, the two children were talking of Europe—­or rather Leila was listening.  “Well,” said the little lady, Ann Penhallow, “how did the game go, John?”

“I am rather out of practice,” said John.  Leila said nothing.  He had been shamefully worsted.  “I think I shall go to bed,” he remarked, looking at his watch.

“I would,” she said.  “There are the candles.  There is a bathroom next to you.”

He was tired and disgusted, but slept soundly.  When at breakfast he said that he was not allowed tea or coffee, he was fed with milk, to which with hot bread and new acquaintance with griddle cakes he took kindly.  After breakfast he was driven to the village with his aunt and equipped with a rough ready-made overcoat and high boots.  He found the dress comfortable, but not to his taste.

When he came back, the Squire and Leila had disappeared and he was left to his own devices.  He was advised by his aunt to walk about and see the stables and the horses.  That any boy should not want to see the horses was inconceivable in this household.  He did go out and walk on the porch, but soon went in chilled and sat down to lose himself in a book of polar travel.  He liked history, travel and biographies of soldiers, fearfully desiring to have his own courage tested—­a more common boy-wish than might be supposed.  He thought of it as he laid down the book and began to inspect again the painted buffalo skins on the wall, letting his imagination wander when once more he touched a Sioux tomahawk with its grim adornment of scalp-locks.  He was far away when he heard his aunt say, “You were not out long, John.  Did they show you the horses?”

Shy and reserved in novel surroundings, he was rather too much at his ease amid socially familiar things, and now said lightly that he had not seen the stables.  “Really, Aunt Ann, I prefer to read or to look at these interesting Indian relics.”

“Ask your uncle about them,” she said, “but you will find out that horses are important in this household.”  She left him with the conviction that James Penhallow was, on the whole, right as to the educational needs of this lad.

After lunch his uncle said, “Leila will show you about the place.  You will want to see the horses, of course, and the dogs.”

“And my guinea pigs,” added Leila.

He took no interest in either, and the dogs somewhat alarmed him.  His cousin, a little discouraged, led him away into the woods where the ancient pines stood snow laden far apart with no intrusion between them of low shrubbery.  Leila was silent, half aware that he was hard to entertain, and then mischievously wilful to give this indifferent cousin a lesson.  Presently he stood still, looking up at the towering cones of the motionless pines.