"
"But you'll do it, Armie?" said his mother.
"Oh, yes, I will try if it be possible to make anything of him, when
I am up to it."
Armine was not "up to it" the next day, nor the next. The third was
very fine, and with great resignation, he sauntered down to Mrs.
Stagg's.
Percy turned out to be a quiet, gentle, pale lad of fourteen, without
cockney vivacity, and so shy that Armine grew shyer, did little but
mark the errors in his French exercise, hear a bit of reading, and
retreat, bemoaning the hopeless stupidity of his pupil.
A few days later Mr. Ogilvie asked the lame boy how he was getting
on.
"Oh, sir," brightening, "the lady is so kind. She does make it so
plain in me."
"The lady? Not the young gentleman?"
"The young gentleman has been here once, sir."
"And his sister comes when he is not well?"
"No, sir, it is his mother, I think. A lady with white hair-—the
nicest lady I ever saw."
"And she teaches you?"
"Oh yes, sir! I am preparing a fable in the Latin Delectus for her,
and she gave me this French book. She does tell me such interesting
facts about words, and about what she has seen abroad, sir! And she
brought me this cushion for my knee."
"Percy thinks there never was such a lady," chimed in his aunt.
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