reated him with respect and
deference. Earl Bracy had in a special manner been his friend, and Lord
Carstairs himself had been a great favourite at Bowick. When that
expulsion from Eton had come about, the Doctor had interested himself, and
had declared that a very scant measure of justice had been shown to the
young lord. He was thus in a measure compelled to accede to the request
made to him, and Lord Carstairs was received back at Bowick, not without
hesitation, but with a full measure of affectionate welcome. His bed-room
was in the parsonage-house, and his dinner he took with the Doctor's
family. In other respects he lived among the boys.

"Will it not be bad for Mary?" Mrs. Wortle had said anxiously to her
husband when the matter was first discussed.

"Why should it be bad for Mary?"

"Oh, I don't know;--but young people together, you know? Mightn't it be
dangerous?"

"He is a boy, and she is a mere child. They are both children. It will
be a trouble, but I do not think it will be at all dangerous in that way."
And so it was decided. Mrs. Wortle did not at all agree as to their both
being children. She thought that her girl was far from being a child.
But she had argued the matter quite as much as she ever argued anything
with the Doctor. So the matter was arranged, and young Lord Carstairs
came back to Bowick.

As far as the Doctor could see, nothing could be nicer than his young
pupil's manners. He was not at all above playing with the other boys. He
took very kindly to his old studies and his old haunts, and of an evening,
after dinner, went away from the drawing-room to the study in pursuit of
his Latin and his Greek, without any precocious attempt at making
conversation with Miss Wortle. No doubt there was a good deal of
lawn-tennis of an afternoon, and the lawn-tennis was generally played in
the rectory garden. But then this had ever been the case, and the
lawn-tennis was always played with two on a side; there were no
_tete-a-tete_ games between his lordship and Mary, and whenever the game
was going on, Mrs. Wortle was always there to see fair-play. Among other
amusements the young lord took to walking far afield with Mr. Peacocke.
And then, no doubt, many things were said about that life in America.
When a man has been much abroad, and has passed his time there under
unusual circumstances, his doings will necessarily become subjects of
conversation to his companions. To have travelled