full of work here then. It’s hard lines to have to kick my heels in idleness for two years, while I’ve so many plans in my head for improving the place, and to have to ask your leave to spend so much as a halfpenny.”

“It is rather tragic. It strikes me, however, that Cousin Edward will be the financial partner of our firm. I shall attend to the literary part of the business.”

“And poor mother has to umpire in all your squabbles. Upon my word, why couldn’t I have been treated like a man straight off, instead of being washed and dressed and fed with a spoon and wheeled in a perambulator by three respectable middle-aged persons, who all vote me a nuisance.”

“In the first place, Roger Ingleton, I am not yet middle-aged. In the second place, I do not vote you a nuisance. In the third place, if you stand there much longer like that, with your coat off, you will catch your death of cold, which would annoy me exceedingly.”

This was one of many conversations which took place. It was difficult to say whether Mr Armstrong took his new duties seriously or not. He generally contrived to say something flippant about them when his pupil tackled him on the subject, but at the same time he rarely failed to give the boy a hint or two that somewhere hidden away behind the cool, odd exterior of the man, there lurked a very warm corner for the fatherless heir of Maxfield.

For the next week or two the days passed uneventfully. The manor-house settled down to its old routine, minus the old man who had once been its master. The villagers, having satisfied themselves that things were likely to be pretty much the same for them under the new régime as the old, resumed their usual ways, and touched their caps regularly to the young Squire. The trampled grass in Yeld churchyard lifted its head again, and a new inscription was added to the family roll on the door of the vault.

“Armstrong,” said the heir one day, as he stood inspecting this last memorial, “I have a good mind to have my brother’s name put on here too.”

This was the first time the tutor had ever heard the boy mention his brother. Indeed, he had, like Dr Brandram, doubted whether Roger so much as knew that he had had a brother.

“What brother?” he inquired vaguely.

“Oh, he died long ago, before I was born. He was the son of father’s first wife, you know,” pointing to the inscription of Ruth Ingleton’s name. “He is not buried here—he died abroad, I believe—but I think his death should be recorded with the others. Don’t you?”

“Certainly,” said the tutor.

“I must try to find the exact date,” said Roger as they walked away. “My father would hardly ever talk about him; his death must have been a knock-down blow to him, and I believe it broke his mother’s heart. Sometimes I wish he had lived. He was called Roger too. I dare say Brandram or the Vicar can tell me about it.”

Mr Armstrong was a good deal concerned at this unexpected curiosity on the boy’s part. He doubted whether it would not be better to tell him the sad story at once, as he had heard it from the doctor. He disliked secrets extremely, especially when he happened to be the custodian of them; and painful as the discovery of this one might be to his ward, it might be best that he should know it now, instead of hovering indefinitely in profitless mystery.

It was, therefore, with some sense of relief that, half-way home, he perceived Dr Brandram in the road ahead. The doctor was, in fact, bound for Maxfield.

“By the way, doctor,” said the tutor, determined to take the bull by the horns, and glaring at his friend rather fiercely through his eye-glass, “we were talking about you just now. Roger has been telling me about an elder brother of his who died long ago and thinks some record of the death should be made on the vault. I think so too.”

“I was saying,” said Roger, “my father never cared to talk about it; so, except that he died abroad, and that his name was the same as mine, I really don’t know much about him. Did you know him?”

The doctor looked uncomfortable, and not altogether grateful to Mr Armstrong for landing him in this dilemma.

“Don’t you think,” said he, ignoring the last question, “as the Squire did not put up an inscription, it would be better to leave the tomb as it is?”

“I don’t see that,” said the boy. “Of course I should say where he really did die. Where was that, by the way?”

“I really did not hear. Abroad, I understood your father to say.”

“Was he delicate, then, that he had to go away? How old was he, doctor?”

“Upon my word, he was so seldom at home, and, when he was, I saw so little of him, that my memory is very hazy about him altogether. He can’t have been more than a boy of fifteen or sixteen, I should say. By the way, Roger, how does the new cob do?”

“Middling. He’s rather lumpy to ride. I shall get mother to swop him for a horse, if she can. I say, doctor, what was he like?”

“Who?—The cob? Oh, your brother! I fancy he was a fine young fellow, but not particularly good-looking.”

“At all like me?”

“Not at all, I should say. But really, as I say, I can recall very little about him.”

The doctor uttered this in a tone which conveyed so broad a hint that he did not relish the subject, that Roger, decidedly mystified, desisted from further inquiries.

“What on earth,” said the former to Mr Armstrong, when at last they had reached Maxfield and the boy had left them, “what on earth has put all this into his head?”

“I cannot tell you. I rather hoped you would tell him all you knew; it would come better from you. If I know anything of Roger, he will find it out for himself, whether you like it or not.”

“Nice thing to be a family doctor,” growled Dr Brandram, “and have charge of the family skeletons. Between you and me, Armstrong, I was never quite satisfied about the story of the boy’s death abroad. The old man said he had had news of it, and that was all anybody, even the poor mother, ever got out of him.”

“Really, Brandram,” said the tutor, “you are a most uncomfortable person. I wish you would not make me a party to these mysteries. I don’t like them, they are upsetting.”

“Well, well, old fellow,” replied the doctor, “whatever it was once, it’s no mystery now; for the poor fellow has long ago made good his right to an inscription on the tombstone. You need have no doubt of that.”

A letter with an Indian post-mark, which arrived that same evening, served for the present, at least, to divert the thoughts of Roger as well as of his tutor to other channels.

The letter was from Captain Oliphant addressed to Mrs Ingleton.

“My very dear cousin,” it read, “need I say with what deep sympathy I received the news of our dear Roger’s sudden call? At this great distance, blows of this kind fall with cruel heaviness, and I assure you I felt crushed as I realised that I should no more grasp the hand of one of the noblest men it has been my privilege to call by the name of friend. If my loss is so great, what must yours be? I dare not think of it! I was truly touched by our dear one’s thought of me in desiring that I should join you in the care of his orphaned boy. I regard this dying wish as a sacred trust put upon me, which gratitude and love alike require that I should accept. Ere this letter reaches you, I shall myself be nearing England. The provision our dear Roger has made has emboldened me to resign my commission, so that I may devote my whole time without distraction to my new charge. You know, dear cousin, the special bond of sympathy that unites us; your boy has been robbed of a parent; my children long since have had to mourn a mother. I cannot leave them here. They accompany me to England, where perhaps for all of us there awaits a community of comfort. I bespeak your motherly heart for them, as I