nce at school, and he knew
nothing of them nor wanted to know. But Bice, though, when he was
annoyed with her, she became to him the typical girl, the epitome of
offending woman, had at other times a very different position. It
stirred his entire being, he did not know how, when she roamed with him
about the woods talking of everything, from a point of view which was
certainly different from Jock's. Occasionally, even, he did not
understand her any more than if she had been speaking a foreign
language. She had never any difficulty in penetrating his meaning as he
had in penetrating hers, but there were times when she did not
understand him any more than he understood her. She was by far the
easiest in morals, the least Puritanical. It was not easy to shock Bice,
but it was not at all difficult to shock Jock, brought up as he was in
the highest sentiments under the wing of MTutor, who believed in moral
influence. But the fashion of the intercourse held between these two,
was very remarkable in its way. They were like brother and sister,
without being brother and sister. They were strangers to each other, yet
living in the most entire intimacy, and likely to be parted for ever
to-morrow. They were of the same age, yet the girl was, in experience of
life, a world in advance of the boy, who, notwithstanding, had the
better of her in a thousand ways. In short, they were a paradox, such as
youth, more or less, is always, and the careless close companionship
that grew up between them was at once the most natural and the most
strange alliance. They told each other everything by degrees, without
being at all aware of the nature of their mutual confidence; Bice
revealing to Jock the conditions on which she was to be brought out in
England, and Jock to Bice the unusual features of his own and his
sister's position, to the unbounded astonishment and scepticism of each.

"Beautiful?" said Jock, drawing a long breath. "But beautiful's not a
thing you can go in for, like an exam: You're born so, or you're born
not so; and you know you're not--I mean, you know you're---- Well, it
isn't your fault. Are you going to be sent away for just being--not
pretty?"

"I told you," said the girl, with a little impatience. "Being pretty is
of no consequence. I am pretty, of course," she added regretfully. "But
it is only if I turn out beautiful that she will take the trouble. And
at sixteen, I am told, one cannot yet know."

"But--" cried Jock w