at she had to excite his racy diatribes against the burgess
English and the pulp they have made of a glorious nation, in order not
to think him inclining upon dotage.

Philippa's occasional scoff in fun concerning 'grandmama's tutor,'
hurt Lady Charlotte for more reasons than one, notwithstanding the
justification of her fore-thoughtfulness. The girl, however, was
privileged; she was Bobby Benlew's dearest friend, and my lord loved
the boy; with whom nothing could be done at school, nor could a tutor
at Olmer control him. In fine, Bobby saddened the family and gained the
earl's anxious affection by giving daily proofs of his being an Ormont
in a weak frame; patently an Ormont, recurrently an invalid. His moral
qualities hurled him on his physical deficiencies. The local doctor and
Dr. Rewkes banished him twice to the seashore, where he began to bloom
the first week and sickened the next, for want of playfellows, jolly
fights and friendships. Ultimately they prescribed mountain air, Swiss
air, easy travelling to Switzerland, and several weeks of excursions at
the foot of the Alps. Bobby might possibly get an aged tutor, or find an
English clergyman taking pupils, on the way.

Thus it happened, that seven years after his bereavement, Lord Ormont
and Philippa and Bobby were on the famous Bernese Terrace, grandest of
terrestrial theatres where soul of man has fronting him earth's utmost
majesty. Sublime: but five minutes of it fetched sounds as of a plug in
an empty phial from Bobby's bosom, and his heels became electrical.

He was observed at play with a gentleman of Italian complexion. Past
guessing how it had come about, for the gentleman was an utter stranger.
He had at any rate the tongue of an Englishman. He had the style, too,
the slang and cries and tricks of an English schoolboy, though visibly
a foreigner. And he had the art of throwing his heart into that bit of
improvised game, or he would never have got hold of Bobby, shrewd to
read a masker.

Lugged-up by the boy to my lord and the young lady, he doffed and bowed.
'Forgive me, pray,' he said; 'I can't see an English boy without having
a spin with him; and I make so bold as to speak to English people
wherever I meet them, if they give me the chance. Bad manners? Better
than that. You are of the military profession, sir, I see. I am a
soldier, fresh from Monte Video. Italian, it is evident, under an
Italian chief there. A clerk on a stool, and hey presto plun