Mary found the renunciation more complete than perhaps she had expected.  The return of his cousins had made Fitzjocelyn a different creature.  He did indeed read with James for two hours every morning, but this was his whole concession to discipline; otherwise he was more wayward and desultory than ever, and seemed bent on teazing James, and amusing himself by making Clara extravagantly wild and idle.  Tired of his long confinement, he threw off all prudence with regard to health, as well as all struggle with his volatile habits; and the more he was scolded, the more he seemed to delight in making meekly ridiculous answers and going his own way.  Sometimes he and Clara would make an appointment, at some unearthly hour, to see Mrs. Morris make cheese, or to find the sun-dew blossom open, or to sketch some effect of morning sun.  Louis would afterwards be tired and unhinged the whole day, but never convinced, only capable of promoting Clara’s chatter; and ready the next day to stand about with her in the sun at the cottages, to the increase of her freckles, and the detriment of his ankle.  Their frolics would have been more comprehensible had she been more attractive; but her boisterous spirits were not engaging to any one but Louis, who seemed to enjoy them in proportion to her brother’s annoyance, and to let himself down into nearly equal folly.

He gave some slight explanation to Mary, one day when he had been reminded of one of their former occupations—­’Ah!  I have no time for that now.  You see there’s nobody else to protect that poor Giraffe from being too rational.’

‘Is that her great danger?’ said Mary.

’Take my advice, Mary, let her alone.  Follow your own judgment, and not poor Jem’s fidgets.  He wants to be ’father, mother both, and uncle, all in one,’ and so he misses his natural vocation of elder brother.  He wants to make a woman of her before her time; and now he has his way with her at school, he shall let her have a little compensation at home.’

‘Is this good for her?  Is it the only way she can be happy?’

’It is her way, at least; and if you knew the penance she undergoes at school, you would not grudge it to her.  She is under his orders not to disclose the secrets of her prison-house, lest they should disquiet Aunt Catharine; and she will not turn to you, because—­I beg your pardon, Mary—­she has imbibed a distrust of all school-girls; and besides, Jem has gone and insisted on your being her friend more than human nature can stand.’

‘It is a great pity,’ said Mary, smiling, but grieved; ’I should not have been able to do her much good—­but if I could only try!’

‘I’ll tell you,’ said Louis, coming near, with a look between confidence and embarrassment; ’is it in the power of woman to make her dress look rather more like other people’s without inflaming the blood of the Dynevors—­cautiously, you know?  Even my father does not dare to give her half-a-sovereign for pocket-money; but do ask your mother if she could not be made such that those girls should not make her their laughingstock.’