etter to Theobald she had said she knew how much of his and
Christina's thoughts were taken up with anxiety for the boy's welfare.
Alethea had thought this handsome enough, but Christina had wanted
something better and stronger. "How can she know how much we think of
our darling?" she had exclaimed, when Theobald showed her his sister's
letter. "I think, my dear, Alethea would understand these things better
if she had children of her own." The least that would have satisfied
Christina was to have been told that there never yet had been any parents
comparable to Theobald and herself. She did not feel easy that an
alliance of some kind would not grow up between aunt and nephew, and
neither she nor Theobald wanted Ernest to have any allies. Joey and
Charlotte were quite as many allies as were good for him. After all,
however, if Alethea chose to go and live at Roughborough, they could not
well stop her, and must make the best of it.

In a few weeks' time Alethea did choose to go and live at Roughborough. A
house was found with a field and a nice little garden which suited her
very well. "At any rate," she said to herself, "I will have fresh eggs
and flowers." She even considered the question of keeping a cow, but in
the end decided not to do so. She furnished her house throughout anew,
taking nothing whatever from her establishment in Gower Street, and by
Michaelmas--for the house was empty when she took it--she was settled
comfortably, and had begun to make herself at home.

One of Miss Pontifex's first moves was to ask a dozen of the smartest and
most gentlemanly boys to breakfast with her. From her seat in church she
could see the faces of the upper-form boys, and soon made up her mind
which of them it would be best to cultivate. Miss Pontifex, sitting
opposite the boys in church, and reckoning them up with her keen eyes
from under her veil by all a woman's criteria, came to a truer conclusion
about the greater number of those she scrutinized than even Dr Skinner
had done. She fell in love with one boy from seeing him put on his
gloves.

Miss Pontifex, as I have said, got hold of some of these youngsters
through Ernest, and fed them well. No boy can resist being fed well by a
good-natured and still handsome woman. Boys are very like nice dogs in
this respect--give them a bone and they will like you at once. Alethea
employed every other little artifice which she thought likely to win
their allegiance to