Soon see your wish fulfilled in either child,
The pert made perter, and the tame made wild.
Cowper.
Robert Otway Brownlow came out fourth on the roll of newly-elected
scholars of S. Mary, Winton, and his master was, as his sister
declared, unwholesomely proud of it, even while he gave all credit to
the Folly, and none to himself.
Still Mary had her way and took him to Brittany, and though her
present pupils were to leave the schoolroom at Christmas, she would
bind herself to no fresh engagement, thinking that she had better be
free to make a home for him, whether at Kenminster or elsewhere.
When the half-year began again Bobus was a good deal missed, Jock was
in a severe idle fit, and Armine did not come up to the expectations
formed of him, and was found, when "up to Mr. Perkins," to be as
bewildered and unready as other people.
All the work in the school seemed flat and poor, except perhaps
Johnny's, which steadily improved. Robert, whose father wished him
to be pushed on so as to be fit for examination for Sandhurst,
opposed, to all pressure, the passive resistance of stolidity. He
was nearly sixteen, but seemed incapable of understanding that
compulsory studies were for his good and not a cruel exercise of
tyranny.
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