t Hughie to her side. He was quite at home with her now, and
walked willingly along the gravel path listening as she spoke to him.

"Hughie, you know the promise I made to you?"

"Yes, I know," he said, his eyes dancing. "I am to be a gentleman. You
said so."

"You are; but I must know all about it. Your sister pays fifty pounds a
year to keep you at school."

"It's an awfully low sort of place," said the boy. "I mean the fellows
there aren't gentlemen, and it is frightfully difficult to be a
gentleman when no one else is."

"Well, it ought not to be. A gentleman ought to be a gentleman through
everything," said Irene. "However, that is not the point. What
profession would you like best if, supposing you were rich, you could
have your choice?"

"I'd like best in all the world," said Hughie, "to be educated to become
a lawyer--I mean a barrister. But there's no chance of that. I like
arguing and disputing, and proving that other people are wrong, more
than anything else in the world."

"You are not particularly amiable, Hughie," said Irene, with a laugh;
"but I think I understand."

"Well, that is all right. Have you anything more to say?"

"Not just at present, only I want to speak to mother."

Lady Jane was sitting just where Irene had left her. Irene went and laid
her head on her mother's lap.

"Frosty pays fifty pounds a year," she said, "and it's a horrid
commercial school, so we'll have to pay a quarter's fees, for I think
that is what is done generally, and Hughie must go to a proper school at
once--a really good one--and we will pay the difference between a really
good school and Frosty's fifty pounds. Then, if Hughie is clever and
gets a scholarship, he can go to one of the 'Varsities, and afterward he
must study for the Bar. You see, I have read up all about it, and I
know. You must help me to do it, mother. I dare say he will make a very
clever barrister, for he looks quite disagreeable enough to be so."

Lady Jane struggled against Irene's whim. But Irene, as she knew quite
well, had the victory; for the next morning there was a serious
conversation with Miss Frost, who left Lady Jane's presence in floods of
grateful tears, the result of which was that Hughie was sent to a
first-class school on the very day that Rosamund, Irene, Agnes, and Miss
Frost went to the Merrimans'.

"Now, indeed, the world is beginning to go in the right direction," said
Irene, who considered herself one of the most i