The upshot of it all was that Isobel became another of Mr. Knight's
pupils. When Mr. Blake suggested the arrangement to his wife, she
raised certain objections, among them that associating with these
little lads might make a tomboy of the girl, adding that she had been
taught with children of her own sex. He retorted in his rough marital
fashion, that if it made something different of Isobel to what she,
the mother, was, he would be glad. Indeed, as usual, Lady Jane's
opposition settled the matter.



Now for the next few years of Isobel's life there is little to be
told. Mr. Knight was an able man and a good teacher, and being a
clever girl she learned a great deal from him, especially in the way
of mathematics, for which, as has been said, she had a natural
leaning.

Indeed very soon she outstripped Godfrey and the other lads in this
and sundry other branches of study, sitting at a table by herself on
what once had been the dais of the old hall. In the intervals of
lessons, however, it was their custom to take walks together and then
it was that she always found herself at the side of Godfrey. Indeed
they became inseparable, at any rate in mind. A strange and most
uncommon intimacy existed between these young creatures, almost might
it have been called a friendship of the spirit. Yet, and this was the
curious part of it, they were dissimilar in almost everything that
goes to make up a human being. Even in childhood there was scarcely a
subject on which they thought alike, scarcely a point upon which they
would not argue.