schoolfellows.'
'Conventional! ay, all agree because they know it by experience,' said Clara-'I'm sure I do!'
'Then take the other side-see the best.'
'Jem says you go too far, and are unreasonable with your theory of making the best of every one.'
'By no means. I always made the worst of Frampton, and now I know what injustice I did him. I never saw greater kindness and unselfishness than he has shown me.'
'I should like to know what best you would make of these girls!'
'You have to try that!'
'Can I get any possible good by staying?'
'A vast deal.'
'I'm sure Italian, and music, and drawing, are not a good compared with truth, and honour, and kindness.'
'All those things only grow by staying wherever we may happen to be, unless it is by our own fault.'
'Tell me what good you mean!'
'Learning not to hate, learning to mend your gloves. Don't jerk the reins, Clara, or you'll get me into a scrape.'
Clara could extract no more, nor did she wish it, for having relieved her mind by the overflow, she only wanted to forget her misfortunes. Her cousin Louis was her chief companion, they had always felt themselves on the same level of nonsense, and had unreservedly shared each other's confidences and projects; and ten thousand bits of intelligence were discussed with mutual ardour, while Clara's ecstasy became uncontrollable as she felt herself coming nearer to her grandmother. She finally descended with a bound almost as distressing to her brother as her ascent had been, and leapt at once to the embrace of Mrs. Frost, who stood there, petting, kissing her, and playfully threatening all sorts of means to stop her growth. Clara reared up her giraffe figure, boasting of having overtopped all the world present, except Louis! She made but a cold, abrupt response to her cousin Mary's greeting, and presently rushed upstairs in search of dear old Jane, with an impetus that made Mrs. Frost sigh, and say, 'Poor child! how happy she is;' and follow her, smiling, while James looked annoyed.
'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-'
James stopped. Louis's eyes were shut, and he appeared to be completely asleep. If silence were acquiescence, it was at least gained; and so he went away, and on returning, intended to impress his lessons of reserve on Clara and her grandmother, but was prevented by finding Mrs. Ponsonby and her daughter already in the library, consulting over some letters, while Clara sat at her grandmother's knee in the full felicity of hearing all the Northwold news.
The tea was brought in, and there was an inquiry for Louis. He came slowly forward from the sofa at the dark end of the room, but disclaimed, of course, the accusation of fatigue.
'A very bad sign,' said James, 'that you have been there all this time without our finding it out. Decidedly, you have taken me in. You don't look half as well as you promised. You are not the same colour ten minutes together, just now white, and now-how you redden!'
'Don't, Jem!' cried Louis, as each observation renewed the tide of burning crimson in his cheek. 'It is like whistling to a turkey- cock. If I had but the blue variety, it might be more comfortable, as well as more interesting.'
Clara went into a choking paroxysm of laughter, which her brother tried to moderate by a look, and Louis rendered more convulsive by quoting
'Marked you his cheek of heavenly blue,'
and looked with a mischievous amusement at James's ill-suppressed displeasure at the merriment that knew no bounds, till even Mrs. Frost, who had laughed at first as much at James's distress as at Louis's travestie or Clara's fun, thought it time to check it by saying, 'You are right, Jem, he is not half so strong as he thinks himself. You must keep him in good order.'
'Take care, Aunt Kitty,' said Louis; 'you'll make me restive. A tutor and governess both! I appeal! Shall we endure it, Clara?'
'Britons never shall be slaves!' was the eager response.
'Worthy of the daughter of the Pendragons,' said Louis; 'but it lost half its effect from being stifled with laughing. You should command yourself, Clara, when you utter a sentiment. I beg to repeat Miss Frost Dynevor's novel and striking speech, and declare my adhesion, 'Britons never shall be slaves!' Liberty, fraternity, and equality! Tyrants, beware!'
'You ungrateful boy!' said Mrs. Frost; 'that's the way you use your good governess!'
'Only the way the nineteenth century treats all its good governesses,' said Louis.
'When it gets past them,' said Mary, smiling. 'I hope you did not think I was not ready to give you up to your tutor?'
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
