called upon without
any preparation to assume a name and a rank of which he knows nothing."

"Not a name. He has always borne his true name."

"His true name may be changed at any moment, Elinor. He may become Lord
Lomond, and the heir----"

"My dear," said Mrs. Dennistoun, growing red, "that is a chance we have
never taken into account."

"What has that to do with it?" she said. "Is his happiness and his
honour to be put in comparison with a chance, a possibility that may
never come true? John, for the sake of everything that is good, let him
wait till he is a man and knows good from evil."

"It is that I am thinking of, Elinor; a boy of fourteen often knows good
from evil much better than a youth of twenty-one, which is, I suppose,
what you call a man. My opinion is that it would be better and safer
now."

"No!" she said. "And no! I will never consent to it. If you go and
poison my boy's mind I will never forgive you, John."

"I have no right to do anything," he said; "it is of course you who must
decide, Elinor: I advise only; and I might as well give that up," he
added, "don't you think? for you are not to be guided by me."

And she was of course supreme in everything that concerned her son.
John, when he could do no more, knew how to be silent, and Mrs.
Dennistoun, if not so wise in this respect, was yet more easily silenced
than John. And Philip Compton went to the old grammar-school among the
dales, where was the young and energetic head-master, who, as Elinor
anticipated, found this one pupil like a pearl among the pebbles of the
shore, and spared no pains to polish him and perfect him in every way
known to the ambitious schoolmaster of modern times.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

It is needless to say that the years which developed Elinor's child into
a youth on the verge of manhood, had not passed by the others of the
family without full evidence of its progress. John Tatham was no longer
within the elastic boundaries of that conventional youth which is
allowed to stretch so far when a man remains unmarried. He might have
been characterized as _encore jeune_, according to the fine distinction
of our neighbours in France, had he desired it. But he did not desire
it. He had never altogether neglected society, having a wholesome liking
for the company of his fellow creatures, but neither had he ever plunged
into it as those do who must keep their places in the crowd or die.
John had pursued the middle path