e fair to be a most satisfactory one. The weather was
unusually fine, and the Doctor and Mrs. Brier were in such good spirits
that some of the visitors made special note of the fact.

I hardly know where to begin in attempting to describe an evening in
the House at Blackrock school.

As to stiffness and formality, there was not a vestige of it. The
Doctor was a gentleman, every inch of him, and ease is an essential
quality of gentlemanly behavior. It is not always an easy thing to be
easy, and all the Doctor's pupils were not miniature doctors, but
whatever else a boy might not have learned at Blackrock, he certainly
had a chance to learn to be gentlemanly.

So conversation flowed freely; the boys were encouraged to indulge in
hearty, unrestrained enjoyment, and no one could have heard the buzz of
voices and the sounds of merry laughter, or seen the beaming faces,
without feeling that all were perfectly at home.

The Doctor was wise in his generation, and he did not invite any of the
tutors to meet the boys. He pretty shrewdly guessed that their meetings
were quite as frequent as could be desired on either side, but he
always invited a few lady friends to join the party.

The Doctor had often been heard to say that while he would not declare
that either Greek or Hebrew was absolutely necessary for an ordinary
education, he was prepared to assert that no boy was educated unless he
knew how to feel at home and to behave with propriety in the society of
ladies.

Moreover, the Doctor was a great lover of music. Many of the boys also
loved it, and, when ladies were invited, those were generally selected
who could contribute to the pleasure of the evening.

Among the guests was one who will meet us again in the course of this
story. It was Madeleine Greenwood, the Doctor's niece, and Martin
Venables' cousin. I should like to describe her, but I will only say
that she was a young and very pretty sunshiny girl, and that everybody
who knew her liked her.

After tea, there were portfolios to examine, and books to turn over;
there was a bagatelle board in one corner of the room, a little group
busy upon some game of guessing in another corner, and another group
eagerly arranging specimens in a microscope, while the Doctor seemed to
be at each group at once.

"Now, come here," said Mrs. Brier to a little knot of boys who could
not find room by the Doctor and his microscope. "I will show you some
of my curiosities."

An