any question that Philip's education was a very
great difficulty. John Tatham, who paid them a visit soberly from time
to time, but did not now come as of old, never indeed came as on that
first occasion when he had been so happy and so undeceived. To be sure,
as Philip grew up it was of course impossible for any one to be like
that. From the time Pippo was five or six he went everywhere with his
mother, her sole companion in general, and when there was a visitor
always making a third in the party, a third who was really the first,
for he appealed to his mother on every occasion, directed her attention
to everything. He only learned with the greatest difficulty that it was
possible she should find it necessary to give her attention in a greater
degree to any one else. When she said, "You know, Pippo, I must talk to
Uncle John," Pippo opened his great eyes, "Not than to me, mamma?"

"Yes, dearest, more than to you for the moment: for he has come a long
way to see us, and he will soon have to go away again." When this was
first explained to him, Pippo inquired particularly when his Uncle John
was going away, and was delighted to hear that it was to be very soon.
However, as he grew older the boy began to take great pleasure in Uncle
John, and hung upon his arm when they went out for their walks, and
instead of endeavouring to monopolise his mother, turned the tables upon
her by monopolising this the only man who belonged to him, and to whom
he turned with the instinct of budding manhood. John too was very
willing to be thus appropriated, and it came to pass that now and then
Elinor was left out, or left herself out of the calculation, urging that
the walk they were planning was too far for her, or too steep for her,
or too something, so that the boy might have the enjoyment of the man's
society all to himself. This changed the position in many ways, and I am
not sure that at first it did not cost Elinor a little thus to stand
aside and put herself out of that first place which had always been by
all of them accorded to her. But if this was so, it was soon lost in the
consideration of how good it was for Pippo to have a man like John to
talk to and to influence him in every way. A man like John! That was the
thing; not a common man, not one who might teach him the baseness, or
the frivolity, or the falsehood of the world, but a good man, who was
also a distinguished man, a man of the world in the best sense, knowing
life i