“And the prize,” said Beatrice, “the scholarship!”

“I have no heart to try for it now!  I would not, if Uncle Geoffrey had not a right to expect it of me.  Let me see:  if Fred is well by the summer, why then—­hurrah!  Really, Queenie, he might get it all up in no time, clever fellow as he is, and be first after all.  Don’t you think so?”

Queen Bee shook her head.  “They say he must not read or study for a very long time,” said she.

“Yes, but six months—­a whole year is an immense time,” said Alex.  “O yes, he must, Bee!  Reading does not cost him half the trouble it does other people; and his verses, they never fail—­never except when he is careless; and the sure way to prevent that is to run him up for time.  That is right.  Why there!” exclaimed Alex joyfully, “I do believe this is the very best thing for his success!” Beatrice could not help laughing, and Alex immediately sobered down as the remembrance crossed him, that if Fred were living a week hence, they would have great reason to be thankful.

“Ah! they will all of them be sorry enough to hear of this,” proceeded he.  “There was no one so much thought of by the fellows, or the masters either.”

“The masters, perhaps,” said Beatrice; “but I thought you said there was a party against him among the boys?”

“Oh, nonsense!  It was only a set of stupid louts who, just because they had pudding-heads themselves, chose to say that I did better without all his reading and Italian, and music, and stuff; and I was foolish enough to let them go on, though I knew all the time it was nothing but chaff.  I shall let them all know what fools they were for their pains, as soon as I go back.  Why, Queenie, you, who only know Fred at home, you have not the slightest notion what a fellow he is.  I’ll just tell you one story of him.”

Alexander forthwith proceeded to tell not one story alone, but many, to illustrate the numerous excellences which he ascribed to Fred, and again and again blaming himself for the species of division which had existed between them, although the fact was that he had always been the more conciliatory of the two.  Little did he guess, good, simple-hearted fellow, that each word was quite as much, or more, to his credit, as to Frederick’s; but Beatrice well appreciated them, and felt proud of him.

These talks were her chief comfort, and always served to refresh her, if only by giving her the feeling that some one wanted her, and not that the only thing she could do for anybody was the sealing of the letters which her father, whose eyes were supposed to be acquiring the power of those of cats, contrived to write in the darkness of Fred’s room.  She thought she could have borne everything excepting Henrietta’s coldness, which still continued, not from intentional unkindness or unwillingness to forgive, but simply because Henrietta was too much absorbed in her own troubles to realise to herself the feelings which