Alexander was more of a comfort to her than any one else, and that chiefly because he wanted her to be a comfort to him.  All the strong affection and esteem which he really entertained for Frederick was now manifested, and the remembrance of old rivalries and petty contentions served but to make the reaction stronger.  He kept aloof from his brothers, and spent every moment he could at the Hall, either reading in the library, or walking up and down the garden paths with Queen Bee.  One of the many conversations which they held will serve as a specimen of the rest.

“So they do not think he is much better to-day?” said Alex, walking into the library, where Beatrice was sealing some letters.

Beatrice shook her head.  “Every day that he is not worse is so much gained,” said she.

“It is very odd,” meditated Alex:  “I suppose the more heads have in them, the easier it is to knock them!”

Beatrice smiled.  “Thick skulls are proverbial, you know, Alex.”

“Well, I really believe it is right.  Look, Bee,” and he examined his own face in the glass over the chimney; “there, do you see a little bit of a scar under my eyebrow?—­there!  Well, that was where I was knocked over by a cricket-ball last half, pretty much harder than poor Fred could have come against the ground,—­but what harm did it do me?  Why everything spun round with me for five minutes or so, and I had a black eye enough to have scared you, but I was not a bit the worse otherwise.  Poor Fred, he was quite frightened for me I believe; for the first thing I saw was him, looking all green and yellow, standing over me, and so I got up and laughed at him for thinking I could care about it.  That was the worst of it!  I wish I had not been always set against him.  I would give anything now.”

“Well, but Alex, I don’t understand.  You were very good friends at the bottom, after all; you can’t have anything really to repent of towards him.”

“Oh, haven’t I though?” was the reply.  “It was more the other fellows’ doing than my own, to be sure, and yet, after all, it was worse, knowing all about him as I did; but somehow, every one, grandmamma and all of you, had been preaching up to me all my life that cousin Fred was to be such a friend of mine.  And then when he came to school, there he was—­a fellow with a pink and white face, like a girl’s, and that did not even know how to shy a stone, and cried for his mamma!  Well, I wish I could begin it all over again.”

“But do you mean that he was really a—­a—­what you call a Miss Molly?”

“Who said so?  No, not a bit of it!” said Alex.  “No one thought so in reality, though it was a good joke to put him in a rage, and pretend to think that he could not do anything.  Why, it took a dozen times more spirit for him to be first in everything than for me, who had been knocked about all my life.  And he was up to anything, Bee, to anything.  The matches at foot-ball will be good for nothing now; I am sure I shan’t care if we do win.”