happiness to be in the same form, to join in the same sport, with
Coningsby; occasionally to be thrown in unusual contact with him, to
exchange slight and not unkind words. In their division they were rivals;
Millbank sometimes triumphed, but to be vanquished by Coningsby was for
him not without a degree of mild satisfaction. Not a gesture, not a phrase
from Coningsby, that he did not watch and ponder over and treasure up.
Coningsby was his model, alike in studies, in manners, or in pastimes; the
aptest scholar, the gayest wit, the most graceful associate, the most
accomplished playmate: his standard of excellent. Yet Millbank was the
very last boy in the school who would have had credit given him by his
companions for profound and ardent feeling. He was not indeed unpopular.
The favourite of the school like Coningsby, he could, under no
circumstances, ever have become; nor was he qualified to obtain that
general graciousness among the multitude, which the sweet disposition of
Henry Sydney, or the gay profusion of Buckhurst, acquired without any
effort. Millbank was not blessed with the charm of manner. He seemed close
and cold; but he was courageous, just, and inflexible; never bullied, and
to his utmost would prevent tyranny. The little boys looked up to him as a
stern protector; and his word, too, throughout the school was a proverb:
and truth ranks a great quality among boys. In a word, Millbank was
respected by those among whom he lived; and school-boys scan character
more nicely than men suppose.

A brother of Henry Sydney, quartered in Lancashire, had been wounded
recently in a riot, and had received great kindness from the Millbank
family, in whose immediate neighbourhood the disturbance had occurred. The
kind Duke had impressed on Henry Sydney to acknowledge with cordiality to
the younger Millbank at Eton, the sense which his family entertained of
these benefits; but though Henry lost neither time nor opportunity in
obeying an injunction, which was grateful to his own heart, he failed in