but the boys found great amusement in talking of this Noddy,
and of all his faults and follies, before the face of Bernard himself.
When he asked who this Noddy was, they told him that they were sure he
must have seen him very often, for his family lived at Rookdale.

"Mr. Evans himself was the only person in the family at school who
really strove to do his duty by Bernard--he gave his heart to improve
him; and he did get him on in his learning more than might have been
expected. But there were too many things against the poor child to make
it possible for him to improve his temper and his character.

"He went to school from the autumn until Christmas: at Christmas he was
at home for a month, and made even his nurse long for the end of the
holidays; and then he went again after the holidays, and continued to
go every day till the spring appeared again. There was no intention
then of changing the plan, though Mr. Low was not at all satisfied with
him.

"Bernard was now become so cunning that he did not show the worst of
his tempers before his father, nor even before his mother; but to his
sister he appeared just as he was, and he often made her very, very
sad by his naughty ways.

"Lucilla was one of those young people who love God and all their
fellow-creatures, and desire to do them good. She had always loved
Bernard, and she loved him still, though she saw him getting more and
more naughty from day to day. She believed, however, that he still
loved her as well as he could love any person besides himself, and she
thought a long time of some way which she might take to make him
sensible of his faults.

"During that winter she had often spoken to him in her kind and gentle
way, and shown him the certain end of evil behaviour; but she felt that
he paid no more attention to her than he would have done to the buzzing
of a fly; but now that the spring was come, and they could get out
together into the fields and gardens and woods, before and after
school-time, and on half-holidays, she thought she might have a better
chance with him, and she formed a thousand plans for making the time
they might thus pass together pleasant, before she could hit upon one
which she thought might do.

"In a shadowy and sweet nook of the garden was an artificial piece of
rock-work, which her mother, when first married, had caused to be made
there, the fragments of rock having been brought from a little
distance. There Lucilla, with the g