and intelligence, that they all have; besides, the little one has
been entirely taught at home."

"I wonder whether it is their mother's doing?"

"I am afraid it is their father's. The Colonel spoke of her as a
poor helpless little thing, who was thrown on his hands with all her
family."

After the morning's examination and placing of the boys, there was a
half-holiday; and the brother and sister set forth to enjoy it
together, for Kenminster was a place with special facilities for
enjoyment. It was built as it were within a crescent, formed by low
hills sloping down to the river; the Church, school, and other
remnants of the old collegiate buildings lying in the flat at the
bottom, and the rest of the town, one of the small decayed wool
staples of Somerset, being in terraces on the hill-side, with steep
streets dividing the rows. These were of very mixed quality and
architecture, but, as a general rule, improved the higher they rose,
and were all interspersed with gardens running up or down, and with a
fair sprinkling of trees, whose budding green looked well amid the
yellow stone.

On the summit were some more ornamental villa-like houses, and grey
stone buildings with dark tiled roofs, but the expansion on that side
had been checked by extensive private grounds. There were very
beautiful woods coming almost close to the town, and in the absence
of the owner, a great moneyed man, they were open to all those who
did not make themselves obnoxious to the keepers; and these, under an
absentee proprietor, gave a free interpretation to rights of way.