just as he
did last year, and he the prince of the school! I could have found it in
my heart to fling the books at his head!"

"But you consent, don't you, to his going up for the scholarship?"

"I consent to anything, as long as he keeps within due bounds, and does
not work himself to death. I am glad of knowing it, for now I can put a
moderate check upon it."

"And did he tell you all about it?"

"He told me he felt as if he owed it to us to gain something for
himself, since I had given up the Randall to gratify him--a pretty sort
of gratification."

"Yes, and he will be glad to get away from school. He says he knows it
is bad for him--as it is uncomfortable to be singled out in the way Dr.
Hoxton does now. You know," pleaded Ethel, "it is not ingratitude or
elation, but it is, somehow, not nice to be treated as he is, set apart
from the rest."

"True; Dr. Hoxton never had taste or judgment. If Norman were not a
lusus naturae," said Dr. May, hesitating for a word, "his head would
have been turned long ago. And he wants companions too--he has been
forced out of boyhood too soon, poor fellow--and Harry gone too. He
does not get anything like real relaxation, and he will be better among
youths than boys. Stoneborough will never be what it was in my time!"
added the doctor mournfully. "I never thought to see the poor old place
come to this; but there--when all the better class send their sons to
the great public schools, and leave nothing but riff-raff here, one is
forced, for a boy's own sake, to do the same."

"Oh, I am so glad! Then you have consented to the rest of Norman's
scheme, and will not keep poor little Tom at school here without him?"

"By what he tells me it would be downright ruin to the boy. I little
thought to have to take a son of mine away from Stoneborough; but Norman
is the best judge, and he is the only person who seems to have made
any impression on Tom, so I shall let it be. In fact," he added, half
smiling, "I don't know what I could refuse old June."

"That's right!" cried Ethel. "That is so nice! Then, if Norman gets the
scholarship, Tom is to go to Mr. Wilmot first, and then to Eton!"

"If Norman gains the scholarship, but that is an if," said Dr. May, as
though hoping for a loop-hole to escape offending the shade of Bishop
Whichcote.

"Oh, papa, you cannot doubt of that!"

"I cannot tell, Ethel. He is facile princeps here in his own world, but
we do not know how it may be when h