raping his cheeks with a corner of his dilapidated Norfolk
jacket--if you have ever tried to do this you'll know that it is more
or less of a test of suppleness--he went slowly to the door, and in
another minute was lifted high into the air and shaken violently by a
slight, rather plain young man, who bore with the utmost meekness a
passionate embrace highly detrimental to his immaculate collar: and the
best of it all was, that he was quite unconscious of the fact that Ger
had not met him with the others, nor seemed aware of anything unusual
beyond the pleasantness of once more sitting in the big slippery
leather-covered arm-chair beside the schoolroom fire, while the rest of
the family, having given him exactly the two minutes' start he had
demanded, came flocking back to sit all over him and shout their news
in an excited chorus.

Next morning, while his father was out in the village, Ger ensconced
himself in one of the deep-seated windows of the study, as a quiet
haven wherein he might wrestle in solitude with the perfect and
pluperfect of the verb _esse_, which he had promised his mother he
would repeat to her that morning.

Their governess had gone home for the holidays, but Ger was so backward
that his father insisted that he must do a short lesson (with Mrs
Ffolliot) every morning. Ger could not read. It was extraordinary how
difficult he found it, and how dull it appeared to him, this art that
seemed to come by nature to other people; which, once mastered,
appeared capable of giving so much pleasure.

It puzzled Ger extremely.

Mrs Ffolliot had, herself, instructed all her sons in the rudiments of
the Latin Grammar, and very well and thoroughly she did it, but so
pleasantly, that in their minds the declensions and the conjugations
were ever vaguely associated with the scent of violets. The reason for
this being, that the instructed one invariably squeezed as close as
possible to his teacher, and as there were violets at Redmarley nearly
all the year round, Mrs Ffolliot always wore a bunch tucked into her
waistband.

It was characteristic of the trust the squire had in his wife's
training that he had not the slightest objection to the children using
the library when he, himself, was not there to be disturbed, being
quite certain that as they had promised her not to touch his writing
table, the promise would be faithfully kept. Besides, like all true
book-lovers, he was generous in the matter of his book