Of course, the schoolmaster was one of these; and when Mary found how all his paths tended to the Pagoda, she hated herself for being a suspicious old duenna.  Nevertheless, she could not but be alarmed by finding that her project of a walking tour through Brittany was not, indeed, refused, but deferred, with excuses about having work to finish, being in no hurry, and the like.

“I think you ought to go,” said Mary at last.

“I see no ought in the case.  Last year the work dragged, and was oppressive; but you see how different it has become.”

“That is the very reason,” said Mary, the colour flying to her checks.  “It will not do to stay lingering here as we did last summer, and not only on your own account.”

“You need not be afraid,” was the muttered answer, as David bent down his head over the exercise he was correcting.  She made no answer, and ere long he began again, “I don’t mean that her equal exists, but I am not such a fool as to delude myself with a spark of hope.”

“She is too nice for that,” said Mary.

“Just so,” he said, glad to relieve himself when the ice had been broken.  “There’s something about her that makes one feel her to be altogether that doctor’s, as much as if he were present in the flesh.”

“Are you hoping to wear that out?  For I don’t think you will.”

“I told you I had no hope,” he answered, rather petulantly.  “Even were it otherwise, there is another thing that must withhold me.  It has got abroad that she may turn out heiress to the old man at Belforest.”

“In such a hopeless case, would it not be wiser to leave this place altogether?”

“I cannot,” he exclaimed; then remembering that vehemence told against him, he added, “Don’t be uneasy; I am a reasonable man, and she is a woman to keep one so; but I think I am useful to her, and I am sure she is useful to me.”

“That I allow she has been,” said Mary, looking at her brother’s much improved appearance; “but-—”

“Moths and candles to wit,” he returned; “but don’t be afraid, I attract no notice, and I think she trusts me about her boys.”

“But what is it to come to?”

“I have thought of that.  Understand that it is enough for me to live near her, and be now and then of some little service to her.”

They were interrupted by a note, which Mr. Ogilvie read, and handed to his sister with a smile:—-

“DEAR MR. OGILVIE,-—Could you and Mary make it convenient to look in
this evening?  Bobus has horrified his uncle by declining to go up
for a scholarship at Eton or Winchester, and I should be very glad to
talk it over with you.  Also, I shall have to ask you to take little
Armine into school after the holidays. 
                                          “Yours sincerely,
                                             “C.  O. BROWNLOW.”

“What does the boy mean?” asked Mary.  “I thought he was the pride of your heart.”