deny this; but he was always wishing that school-hours were over, that
he might get under the great dining table to read Robinson Crusoe, or
might play at shipwreck, under pretence of amusing little Harry. It did
make him ashamed to see how his sisters got on, from the mere pleasure
of learning, and without any idea of ever living anywhere but in London;
while he, who seemed to have so much more reason for wanting the very
knowledge that they were obtaining, could not settle his mind to his
lessons. Jane was beginning to read French books for her amusement in
leisure hours; and Agnes was often found to have covered two slates with
sums in Practice, just for pleasure, while he could not master the very
moderate lessons Miss Harold set him. It is true, he was two years
younger than Agnes: but she had known more of everything that he had
learned, at seven years old, than he now did at eight. Hugh began to
feel very unhappy. He saw that Miss Harold was dissatisfied, and was
pretty sure that she had spoken to his mother about him. He felt that
his mother became more strict in making him sit down beside her, in the
afternoon, to learn his lessons for the next day; and he was pretty sure
that Agnes went out of the room because she could not help crying when
his sum was found to be all wrong, or when he mistook his tenses, or
when he said (as he did every day, though regularly warned to mind what
he was about) that four times seven is fifty-six. Every day these
things weighed more on Hugh's spirits; every day he felt more and more
like a dunce; and when Philip came home for the Midsummer holidays, and
told all manner of stories about all sorts of boys at school, without
describing anything like Hugh's troubles with Miss Harold, Hugh was
seized with a longing to go to Crofton at once, as he was certainly too
young to go at present into the way of a shipwreck or a battle. The
worst of it was, there was no prospect of his going yet to Crofton. In
Mr Tooke's large school there was not one boy younger than ten; and
Philip believed that Mr Tooke did not like to take little boys. Hugh
was aware that his father and mother meant to send him to school with
Philip by-and-by; but the idea of having to wait--to do his lessons with
Miss Harold every day till he should be ten years old, made him roll
himself on the parlour carpet in despair.

Philip was between eleven and twelve. He was happy at school: and he
liked to talk all abou