“How do you get on with Harry, Mr. Sutherland?”

“Perfectly to my satisfaction,” answered Hugh.

“Do you not find him very slow?”

“Quite the contrary.”

“You surprise me.  But you have not given him any lessons yet.”

“I have given him a great many, and he is learning them very fast.”

“I fear he will have forgotten all my poor labours before you take up the work where we left it.  When will you give him any book-lessons?”

“Not for a while yet.”

Euphra did not reply.  Her silence seemed intended to express dissatisfaction; at least so Hugh interpreted it.

“I hope you do not think it is to indulge myself that I manage Master Harry in this peculiar fashion,” he said.  “The fact is, he is a very peculiar child, and may turn out a genius or a weakling, just as he is managed.  At least so it appears to me at present.  May I ask where you left the work you were doing with him?”

“He was going through the Eton grammar for the third time,” answered Euphra, with a defiant glance, almost of dislike, at Hugh.  “But I need not enumerate his studies, for I daresay you will not take them up at all after my fashion.  I only assure you I have been a very exact disciplinarian.  What he knows, I think you will find he knows thoroughly.”

So saying, Euphra rose, and with a flush on her cheek, walked out of the room in a more stately manner than usual.

Hugh felt that he had, somehow or other, offended her.  But, to tell the truth, he did not much care, for her manner had rather irritated him.  He retired to his own room, wrote to his mother, and, when Harry awoke, carried him again to the barn for an hour’s work in the straw.  Before it grew dusk, they had finished a little, silent, dark chamber, as round as they could make it, in the heart of the straw.  All the excavated material they had thrown on the top, reserving only a little to close up the entrance when they pleased.

The next morning was still rainy; and when Hugh found Harry in the library as usual, he saw that the clouds had again gathered over the boy’s spirit.  He was pacing about the room in a very odd manner.  The carpet was divided diamond-wise in a regular pattern.  Harry’s steps were, for the most part, planted upon every third diamond, as he slowly crossed the floor in a variety of directions; for, as on previous occasions, he had not perceived the entrance of his tutor.  But, every now and then, the boy would make the most sudden and irregular change in his mode of progression, setting his foot on the most unexpected diamond, at one time the nearest to him, at another the farthest within his reach.  When he looked up, and saw his tutor watching him, he neither started nor blushed:  but, still retaining on his countenance the perplexed, anxious expression which Hugh had remarked, said to him: 

“How can God know on which of those diamonds I am going to set my foot next?”