ool, get the liking for our games, and
do a lot of good when they go home. The things we learn from them are
to dance, to sing, and to study:--they are more in earnest than we about
study. They teach us at fencing too. The tutor praised fencing as an
exercise and an accomplishment. He had large reserves of eulogy for
boxing. He knew the qualities of the famous bruisers of the time, cited
fisty names, whose owners were then to be seen all over an admiring
land in prints; in the glorious defensive-offensive attitude, England's
own--Touch me, if you dare! with bullish, or bull-dog, or oak-bole
fronts for the blow, handsome to pugilistic eyes.

The young tutor had lighted on a pet theme of Mr. Eglett's--the
excelling virtues of the practice of pugilism in Old England, and the
school of honour that it is to our lower population. "Fifty times better
for them than cock-fighting," he exclaimed, admitting that he could be
an interested spectator at a ring or the pit cock-fighting or ratting.

"Ratting seems to have more excuse," the tutor said, and made no sign of
a liking for either of those popular pastimes. As he disapproved without
squeamishness, the impulsive but sharply critical woman close by nodded;
and she gave him his dues for being no courtier.

Leo had to be off to bed. The tutor spared him any struggle over
the shaking of hands, and saying, "Goodnight, Leo," continued the
conversation. The boy went away, visibly relieved of the cramp that
seizes on a youngster at the formalities pertaining to these chilly and
fateful introductions.

"What do you think of the look of him?" Mr. Eglett asked.

The tutor had not appeared to inspect the boy. "Big head," he remarked.
"Yes, Leo won't want pushing at books when he's once in harness. He
will have six weeks of me. It's more than the yeomanry get for drill
per annum, and they're expected to know something of a soldier's duties.
There's a chance of putting him on the right road in certain matters.
We'll walk, or ride, or skate, if the frost holds to-morrow: no lessons
the first day."

"Do as you think fit," said lady Charlotte.

The one defect she saw in the tutor did not concern his pupil. And a
girl, if hit, would be unable to see that this tutor, judged as a man,
was to some extent despicable for accepting tutorships, and, one might
say, dishonouring the family of a soldier of rank and distinction,
by coming into houses at the back way, with footing enough to air his