behind with, your studies, and that he
would have to teach you and bring you forward."

"Oh, I see! And is he going to teach me?"

"Yes, Mr Limpney is your private tutor now; and he is coming every day,
so I hope you will be very industrious, and try hard to learn."

"Oh yes, I'll try. Mr Limpney; I don't think he much liked me,
though."

"Nonsense, Dexter; you should not think such things."

"All right. I won't then. It will be like going to school again, won't
it?"

"Much pleasanter, I hope."

Time glided rapidly on after its usual fashion, and Dexter grew fast.

There was a long range of old stabling at the doctor's house, with
extensive lofts. The first part was partitioned off for a coachman's
room, but this had not been in use for half a century, and the whole
place was ruinous and decayed. Once upon a time some one with a love of
horses must have lived there, for there were stalls for eight, and a
coach-house as well, but the doctor only kept two horses, and they
occupied a new stable built in front of the old.

The back part was one of Dexter's favourite hunting-grounds. Here he
could be quite alone, and do pretty well as he liked. Peter the groom
never noticed his goings-out and comings-in, and there was no one to
find fault with him for being untidy.

Here then he had quite a little menagerie of his own. His pocket-money,
as supplied by the doctor, afforded him means for buying any little
thing he fancied, and hence he had in one of the lofts a couple of very
ancient pigeons, which the man of whom he bought them declared to be
extremely young; a thrush in a cage; two hedge-sparrows, which were
supposed to be linnets, in another; two mice in an old cigar-box lined
with tin; and a very attenuated rat, which had been caught by Peter in a
trap, and which was allowed to live _minus_ one foreleg that had been
cut short off close to the shoulder, but over which the skin had grown.

No one interfered with Dexter's pets, and in fact the old range of
stabling was rarely visited, even by the gardeners, so that the place
became not only the boy's favourite resort in his loneliness, but, so to
speak, his little kingdom where he reigned over his pets.

There was plenty of room, especially in the lofts with their cross-beams
and ties; and here, with his pets, as the only spectators, Dexter used
to go daily to get rid of the vitality which often battled for exit in
the confinement of the house. Half a