‘Never mind, Jem,’ said Louis, who had thrown himself at full length on the sofa, ‘she deserves compensation.  Let it fizz.’

‘And undo everything!  What do you say to that, Mary?’

‘Mary is to say nothing,’ said Louis, ’I mean that poor child to have her swing.’

‘I shall leave you and James to settle that,’ said Mary, quitting them.

‘I am very anxious that Clara should form a friendship with Mary,’ said James, gravely.

‘Friendships can’t be crammed down people’s throats,’ said Louis, in a weary indifferent tone.

‘You who have been three months with Mary—!’

’Mary and I did not meet with labels round our necks that here were a pair of friends.  Pray do you mean to send that victim of yours back to school?’

’Don’t set her against it.  I have been telling her of the necessity all the way home.’

’Is it not to be taken into consideration that a bad—­not to say a base-style of girl seems to prevail there?’

‘I can’t help it, Fitzjocelyn,’ cried Jem, ruffling up his hair, as he always did when vexed.  ’Girls fit to be her companions don’t go to school—­or to no school within my means.  This place has sound superiors, and she must be provided with a marketable stock of accomplishments, so there’s no choice.  I can trust her not to forget that she is a Dynevor.’

‘Query as to the benefit of that recollection.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘That I never saw evils lessened by private self-exaltation.’

’Very philosophical! but as a matter of fact, what was it but the sense of my birth that kept me out of all the mischief I was exposed to at the Grammar School!’

‘I always thought it had been something more respectable,’ said Louis, his voice growing more sleepy.

’Pshaw!  Primary motives being understood, secondary stand common wear the best.’

‘As long as they don’t eat into the primary.’

‘The long and short of it is,’ exclaimed James, impatiently, ’that we must have no nonsense about Clara.  It is pain enough to me to inflict all this on her, but I would not do it, if I thought it were more than mere discomfort.  Her principles are fixed, she is above these trumperies.  But you have the sense to see that her whole welfare may depend on whether she gets fitted to be a valuable accomplished governess or a mere bonne, tossed about among nursery-maids.  There’s where poverty galls!  Don’t go and set my grandmother on!  If she grew wretched and took Clara away, it would be mere condemning of her to rudeness and struggling!’

‘Very well,’ said Louis, as James concluded the brief sentences, uttered in the bitterness of his heart, ’one bargain I make.  If I am to hold my tongue about school, I will have my own way with her in the holidays.’

’I tell you, Louis, that it is time to have done with childishness.  Clara is growing up—­I won’t have you encourage her in all that wild flightiness—­I didn’t want to have had her here at all!  If she is ever to be a reasonable, conformable woman, it is high time to begin.  I can’t have you undoing the work of six months! when Mary might make some hand of her, too—­’