should be swamped among such a set as ours."

"I thought you would be delighted."

"I should be, if I had him alone, but he must be put with a crew who
will make it their object to bully him out of his superiority, and
the more I do for him, the worse it will be for him, poor little
fellow; and he looks too delicate to stand the ordeal. It is sheer
cruelty to send him."

"Hasn't he brothers?"

"Oh, yes! I was going to tell you, two bigger boys, another Robert
and John Brownlow-—about eleven and nine years old. The younger one
is a sort of black spider monkey, wanting the tail. We shall have
some trouble with that gentleman, I expect."

"But not the old trouble?"

"No, indeed; unless the atmosphere affects him. He answered as no
boy of twelve can do here; and as to the elder one, I must take him
at once into the fifth form, such as it is."

"Where have they been at school?"

"At a day school in London. They are Colonel Brownlow's nephews.
Their father was a medical man in London, who died last summer,
leaving a young widow and these boys, and they have just come down to
live in Kenminster. But it can't be owing to the school. No school
would give all three that kind of-—what shall I call it?-—culture,