'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.'
'So he is; but he is ahead of his fellows, and ought to be elsewhere. All measures have been taken for sending him up to stand at one of the public schools, but I thought him very passive about it. He is an odd boy-reserved and self-concentrated-quite beyond his uncle's comprehension, and likely to become headstrong at a blind exercise of authority.'
'I used to like Allen best,' said Mary.
'He is the pleasantest, but there's more solid stuff in Bobus. That boy's school character is perfect, except for a certain cool opinionativeness, which seldom comes out with me, but greatly annoys the undermasters.'
'Is he a prig?'
'Well, yes, I'm afraid he is. He's unpopular, for he does not care for games; but his brother is popular enough for both.'
'Jock?-the monkey!'
'His brains run to mischief. I've had to set him more impositions than any boy in the school, and actually to take his form myself, for simply the undermasters can't keep up discipline or their own tempers. As to poor M. le Blanc, I find him dancing and shrieking with fury in the midst of a circle of snorting, giggling boys; and when he points out ce petit monstre, Jock coolly owns to having translated 'Croquons les,' let us croquet them; or 'Je suis blesse,' I am blest.'
'So the infusion of brains produces too much effervescence.'
'Yes, but the whole school has profited, and none more so than No. 2 of the other family, who has quite passed his elder brother, and is above his namesake whenever it is a case of plodding ability versus idle genius. But, after all, how little one can know of one's boys.'
'Or one's girls,' said Mary, thinking of governess experiences.
It was a showery summer evening when the brother and sister walked up to the Folly in a partial clearing, when the evening sun made every bush twinkle all over with diamond drops. Childish voices were heard near the gate, and behind a dripping laurel were seen Elvira, Armine, and Barbara engaged in childhood's unceasing attempt to explore the centre of the earth.
'What do you expect to find there?' they were asked.
'Little kobolds, with pointed caps, playing at ball with rubies and emeralds, and digging with golden spades,' answered Babie.
'And they shall give me an opal ring,' said Elfie, 'But Armine does not want the kobolds.'
'He says they are bad,' said Babie. 'Now are they, Mr. Ogilvie? I know elder women are, and erl kings and mist widows, but poor Neck, that sat on the water and played his harp, wasn't bad, and the dear little kobolds were so kind and funny. Now are they bad elves?'
Her voice was full of earnest pleading, and Mr. Ogilvie, not being versed in the spiritual condition of elves could best reply by asking why Armine thought ill of their kind.
'I think they are nasty little things that want to distract and bewilder one in the real great search.'
'What search, my boy?'
'For the source of everything,' said Armine, lowering his voice and looking into his muddy hole.
'But that is above, not below,' said Mary.
'Yes,' said Armine reverently; 'but I think God put life and the beginning of growing into the earth, and I want to find it.'
'Isn't it Truth?' said Babie. 'Mr. Acton said Truth was at the bottom of a well. I won't look at the kobolds if they keep one from seeing Truth.'
'But I must get my ring and all my jewels from them,' put in Elfie.
'Should you know Truth?' asked Mr. Ogilvie. 'What do you think she is like?'
'So beautiful!' said Babie, clasping her fingers with earnestness. 'All white and clear like crystal, with such blue, sweet, open eyes. And she has an anchor.'
'That's Hope?' said Armine.
'Oh! Hope and Truth go hand in hand,' said Babie; 'and Hope will be all robed in green like the young corn- fields in the spring.'
'Ah, Babie, that emerald Hope and crystal Truth are not down in the earth, earthy,' said Mary again.
'Nay, perhaps Armine has got hold of a reality,' said Mr. Ogilvie. 'They are to be found above by working below.'
'Talking paradox to Armine?' said the cheerful voice of the young mother. 'My dear sprites, do you know that it is past eight! How wet you are! Good night, and mind you don't go upstairs in those boots.'
'It is quite comfortable to hear anything so commonplace,' said Mary, when the children had run away, to the sound of its reiteration after full interchange of good nights. 'Those imps make one feel quite eerie.'
'Has Armine been talking in that curious fashion of his,' said Carey, as they began to pace the walks. 'I am afraid his thinker is too big-as the child says in Miss Tytler's book. This morning over his parsing he asked me-'Mother, which is _realest_, what we touch or what we feel?' knitting his brows fearfully when I did not catch his meaning, and going on-'I mean is that fly as real as King David?' and then as I was more puzzled he went on-'You see we only need just see that fly now with our outermost senses, and he will only live a little while, and nobody cares or will think of him any more, but everybody always does think, and feel, and care a great deal about King David.' I told him, as the best answer I could make on the spur of the moment, that David was alive in Heaven, but he pondered in and broke out-'No, that's not it! David was a real man, but it is just the same about Perseus and Siegfried, and lots of people that never were men, only just thoughts. Ain't thoughts _realer_ than things, mother?''
'But much worse for him, I should say,' exclaimed Mary.
'I thought of Pisistratus Caxton, and wrote to Mr. Ogilvie. It is a great pity, but I am afraid he ought not to dwell on such things till his body is grown up to his mind.'
'Yes, school is the approved remedy for being too clever,' said Mr. Ogilvie. 'You are wise. It is a pity, but it will be all the better for him by-and-by.'
'And the elder ones will take care the seasoning is not too severe,' said Caroline, with a resolution she could hardly have shown if this had been her first launch of a son. 'But it was about Bobus that I wanted to consult you. His uncle thinks him headstrong and conceited, if not lazy.'
'Lazy he is certainly not.'
'I knew you would say so, but the Colonel cannot enter into his wish to have more physical science and less classics, and will not hear of his going to Germany, which is what he wishes, though I am sure he is too young.'
'He ought not to go there till his character is much more formed.'
'What do you think of his going on here?'
'That's a temptation I ought to resist. He will soon have outstripped the other boys so that I could not give him
