ost delightful houses to visit at in the country, or
probably, in all England; that is to say, young men and boys, and indeed
young people, generally, found it so. Ernest knew that it would do poor
Ellis a great deal of good to go there. From what he could make out,
Ellis's father and mother were advanced in life and great invalids, and
Edward, their only son, had been considerably over-petted and
over-coddled, though, as they had a good deal of sense with regard to
many important matters, they had not spoilt him. They had corrected him
as a child when he deserved it, and watching the growth of bad
propensities, had endeavoured to eradicate them before they had attained
any size. They were themselves very shy, diffident people, and thinking
little of themselves, thought very little of their son, and brought him
up to think very little of himself. Certainly, if they erred, they
erred on the right side.

Ellis was not weak; he was not a boy at all likely to be imposed upon by
a bad person; his principles were, as far as could be seen, good, and
his sympathies appeared to be always on the right side. Thus he was
undoubtedly particularly fortunate in falling in with a boy like Ernest
Bracebridge, whom he could admire, and who could, at the same time,
enter into his feelings, and take an interest in him. Still Ernest did
not think that he was doing anything out of the way in encouraging him.
There was something so natural and unpretending about his character, and
so free was he from anything like conceit or vanity, that he was
scarcely conscious that he was superior to his companions; or, if he was
conscious of the fact, that it was anything on which he should be
justified in priding himself. Of one thing I am sure, that he had not
found out that, by his own force of character and talents, he had
already become one of the most popular boys in the school, and that, had
he made the experiment, he would have had more followers than any boy
even in the first class. The way he had tackled Blackall the evening of
the kite-race had become known, though neither he nor Ellis had talked
of it; and this gained him many admirers, especially among those over
whom the bully was accustomed to tyrannise. At last Blackall began to
be twitted with it, even by the fellows of his own age. It became at
last a joke among his compeers to ask him how his ears were--how he
liked to have an old man of the woods on his back, and how he could