“The lady?  Not the young gentleman?”

“The young gentleman has been here once, sir.”

“And his sister comes when he is not well?”

“No, sir, it is his mother, I think.  A lady with white hair-—the nicest lady I ever saw.”

“And she teaches you?”

“Oh yes, sir!  I am preparing a fable in the Latin Delectus for her, and she gave me this French book.  She does tell me such interesting facts about words, and about what she has seen abroad, sir!  And she brought me this cushion for my knee.”

“Percy thinks there never was such a lady,” chimed in his aunt.  “She is very good to him, and he is ever so much better in his spirits and his appetite since she has been coming to him.  The young gentleman was haughty like, and couldn’t make nothing of him; but the lady—- she’s so affable!  She is one of a thousand!”

“I did not mean to impose a task on you,” said Mr. Ogilvie, next time he could speak to Mrs. Brownlow.

“Oh!  I am only acting stop-gap till Armine rallies and takes to it,” she said.  “The boy is delightful.  It is very amusing to teach French to a mind of that age so thoroughly drilled in grammar.”

“A capital thing for Percy, but I thought at least you would have deputed the Infanta.”

“The Infanta was a little overdone with the style of thing at Woodside.  She and Sydney Evelyn had a romance about good works, of which Miss Parsons completely disenchanted her—-rather too much so, I fear.”

“Let her alone; she will recover,” said Mr. Ogilvie, “if only by seeing you do what I never intended.”

“I like it, teacher as I am by trade.”

So each day Armine imagined himself bound to the infliction of Percy Stagg, and compelled by headache, cough, or weather, to let his mother be his substitute.

“She is keeping him going on days when I am not equal to it,” he said to Mr. Ogilvie.

“Having thus given you one of my tasks,” said that gentleman, “let me ask whether I can help you in any of your studies?”

“I have been reading with Bobus, thank you.”

“And now?”

“I have not begun again, though, if my mother desires it, I shall.”

“So I should suppose; but I am sorry you do not take more interest in the matter.”

“Even if I live,” said Armine, “the hopes with which I once studied are over.”

“What hopes?”

The boy was drawn on by his sympathy to explain his plans for the perfection of church and charities at Woodside, where he would have worked as curate, and lavished all that wealth could supply in all institutions for its good and that of Kenminster.  It was the vanished castle over which he and Miss Parsons had spent so many moans, and yet at the end of it all, Armine saw a sort of incredulous smile on his friend’s face.

“I don’t think it was impossible or unreasonable,” he said.  “I could have been ordained as curate there, and my mother would have gladly given land, and means, and all.”