CHAPTER I

'OMNES OMNIA BONA DICERE'

When young Mark Robarts was leaving college, his father might well
declare that all men began to say all good things to him, and to
extol his fortune in that he had a son blessed with an excellent
disposition. This father was a physician living at Exeter. He was
a gentleman possessed of no private means, but enjoying a lucrative
practice, which had enabled him to maintain and educate a family
with all the advantages which money can give in this country. Mark
was his eldest son and second child; and the first page or two of
this narrative must be consumed in giving a catalogue of the good
things which chance and conduct together had heaped upon this young
man's head.

His first step forward in life had arisen from his having been
sent, while still very young, as a private pupil to the house of a
clergyman, who was an old friend and intimate friend of his father's.
This clergyman had one other, and only one other, pupil--the
young Lord Lufton; and between the two boys, there had sprung
up a close alliance. While they were both so placed, Lady Lufton
had visited her son, and then invited young Robarts to pass
his next holidays at Framley Court. This visit was made; and it
ended in Mark going back to Exeter with a letter full of praise
from the widowed peeress. She had been delighted, she said, in
having such a companion for her son, and expressed a hope that the
boys might remain together during the course of their education.