osition and
inclined to treat his father with deference. He was gentle and docile;
but he did not acquire knowledge with facility, and was remarkably
deficient in that previous information on which his father counted. The
other pupil was of a different temperament. She learned with a glance,
and remembered with extraordinary tenacity everything she had acquired.
But she was neither tender nor deferential, and to induce her to study
you could not depend on the affections, but only on her intelligence.
So she was often fitful, capricious, or provoking, and her mother,
who, though accomplished and eager, had neither the method nor the
self-restraint of Mr. Ferrars, was often annoyed and irritable. Then
there were scenes, or rather ebullitions on one side, for Myra was
always unmoved and enraging from her total want of sensibility.
Sometimes it became necessary to appeal to Mr. Ferrars, and her manner
to her father, though devoid of feeling, was at least not contemptuous.
Nevertheless, on the whole the scheme, as time went on, promised to be
not unsuccessful. Endymion, though not rapidly, advanced surely, and
made some amends for the years that had been wasted in fashionable
private schools and the then frivolity of Eton. Myra, who,
notwithstanding her early days of indulgence, had enjoyed the advantage
of admirable governesses, was well grounded in more than one modern
language, and she soon mastered them. And in due time, though much after
the period on which we are now touching, she announced her desire to
become acquainted with German, in those days a much rarer acquirement
than at present. Her mother could not help her in this respect, and that
was perhaps an additional reason for the study of this tongue, for Myra
was impatient of tuition, and not unjustly full of self-confidence.
She took also the keenest interest in the progress of her brother, made
herself acquainted with all his lessons, and sometimes helped him in
their achievement.

Though they had absolutely no acquaintance of any kind except the rector
and his family, life was not dull. Mr. Ferrars was always employed, for
besides the education of his children, he had systematically resumed
a habit in which he had before occasionally indulged, and that was
political composition. He had in his lofty days been the author of more
than one essay, in the most celebrated political publication of the
Tories, which had commanded attention and obtained celebrity. Many