n the best sense, and able to modify the boy's conception of what
he was to find in the world, as women could never do.

"For after all that can be said, we are not good for much on those
points, mother," Mrs. Compton would say.

"I don't know, Elinor; I doubt whether I would exchange my own ideas for
John's," the elder lady replied.

"Ah, perhaps, mother; but for Pippo his experience and his knowledge
will do so much. A boy should not be brought up entirely with women any
more than a girl should be with men."

"I have often thought, my dear," said Mrs. Dennistoun, "if in God's
providence it had been a girl instead of a boy----"

"Oh!" said the younger mother, with a flush, "how can you speak--how
could you think of any possible child but Pippo? I would not give him
for a score of girls."

"And if he had been a girl you would not have changed him for scores of
boys," said Mrs. Dennistoun, who added after a while, with a curious
sense of competition, and a determination to allow no inferiority, "You
forget, Elinor, that my only child is a girl." The elder lady (whom they
began to call the old lady) showed a great deal of spirit in defence of
her own.

But Philip was approaching fourteen, and the great question had to be
decided now or never; where was he to be sent to school? It was
difficult now to send him to bed to get him out of the way, he who was
used to be the person of first importance in the house--in order that
the others might settle what was to be his fate. And accordingly the two
ladies came down-stairs again after the family had separated in the
usual way, in order to have their consultation with their adviser. There
was now a room in the house furnished as a library in order that Philip
might have a place in which to carry on his studies, and where "the
gentlemen" might have their talks by themselves, when there was any one
in the house. And here they found John when they stole in one after the
other, soft-footed, that the boy might suspect no complot. They had
their scheme, it need not be doubted, and John had his. He pronounced at
once for one of the great public schools, while the ladies on their part
had heard of one in the north, an old foundation as old as Eton, where
there was at the moment a head master who was quite exceptional, and
where boys were winning honours in all directions. There Pippo would
be quite safe. He was not likely to meet with anybody who would put
awkward questions, and