“And was not mamma well enough to come?” asked Frederick, as the carriage turned away from the station.

“She was afraid of the heat.  She had some business letters to write yesterday, which teased her, and she has not recovered from them yet; but she has been very well, on the whole, this summer.  But what of your school affairs, Fred?  How did the examination go off?”

“I am fourth, and Alex Langford fifth.  Every one says the prize will lie between us next year.”

“Surely,” said Henrietta, “you must be able to beat him then, if you are before him now.”

“Don’t make too sure, Henrietta,” said Frederick, shaking his head, “Langford is a hard-working fellow, very exact and accurate; I should not have been before him now if it had not been for my verses.”

“I know Beatrice is very proud of Alexander,” said Henrietta, “she would make a great deal of his success.”

“Why of his more than of that of any other cousin?” said Frederick with some dissatisfaction.

“O you know he is the only one of the Knight Sutton cousins whom she patronizes; all the others she calls cubs and bears and Osbaldistones.  And indeed, Uncle Geoffrey says he thinks it was in great part owing to her that Alex is different from the rest.  At least he began to think him worth cultivating from the time he found him and Busy Bee perched up together in an apple-tree, she telling him the story of Alexander the Great.  And how she always talks about Alex when she is here.”

“Is she at Knight Sutton?”

“Yes, Aunt Geoffrey would not come here, because she did not wish to be far from London, because old Lady Susan has not been well.  And only think, Fred, Queen Bee says there is a very nice house to be let close to the village, and they went to look at it with grandpapa, and he kept on saying how well it would do for us.”

“O, if we could but get mamma there!” said Fred.  “What does she say?”

“She knows the house, and says it is a very pleasant one,” said Henrietta; “but that is not an inch—­no, not the hundredth part of an inch—­towards going there!”

“It would surely be a good thing for her if she could but be brought to believe so,” said Frederick.  “All her attachments are there—­her own home; my father’s home.”

“There is nothing but the sea to be attached to, here,” said Henrietta.  “Nobody can take root without some local interest, and as to acquaintance, the people are always changing.”

“And there is nothing to do,” added Fred; “nothing possible but boating and riding, which are not worth the misery which they cause her, as Uncle Geoffrey says.  It is very, very—­”

“Aggravating,” said Henrietta, supplying one of the numerous stock of family slang words.

“Yes, aggravating,” said he with a smile, “to be placed under the necessity of being absurd, or of annoying her!”

“Annoying!  O, Fred, you do not know a quarter of what she goes through when she thinks you are in any danger.  It could not be worse if you were on the field of battle!  And it is very strange, for she is not at all a timid person for herself.  In the boat, that time when the wind rose, I am sure Aunt Geoffrey was more afraid than she was, and I have seen it again and again that she is not easily frightened.”