let them go there?"

"My dear, the Major will see about your ponies when he comes."

"We will send the coachman down to inquire," added Rachel.

"He is only a civilian, and the Major always chooses our horses,"
said Conrade.

"And I am to have one too, mamma," added Francis. "You know I have
been out four times with the staff, and the Major said I could ride
as well as Con!"

"Reading is what is wanted now, my dear, go on."

Five lines more; but Francis and his mother were whispering together,
and of course Conrade stopped to listen. Rachel saw there was no
hope but in getting him alone, and at his mother's reluctant desire,
he followed her to the dining-room; but there he turned dogged and
indifferent, made a sort of feint of doing what he was told, but
whether she tried him in arithmetic, Latin, or dictation, he made
such ludicrous blunders as to leave her in perplexity whether they
arose from ignorance or impertinence. His spelling was phonetic to
the highest degree, and though he owned to having done sums, he would
not, or did not answer the simplest question in mental arithmetic.
"Five apples and eight apples, come, Conrade, what will they make?"

"A pie."

That was the hopeful way in which the examination proceeded, and when