"
Armine worked for this examination as eagerly as he had decorated for
Miss Parsons, and in the face of the like sneers; for Bobus really
believed it was all waste of time, and did not scruple to tell him
so, and to laugh when he consulted Jock, whose acquirements lay more
in the way of military mathematics and modern languages than of
university requirements.
Perhaps the report that Armine was reading Livy with all his might
was one of his mother's best restoratives,-—and still more that when
he came to wish her good-night, he said, "Mother, I've been a
wretched, self-sufficient brute all this time; I'm very sorry, and
I'll try to go on better."
And when she came downstairs to be petted and made much of by all the
four, she found that the true and original Armine had come back,
instead of Petronella's changeling. Indeed, the danger now was that
he would overwork himself in his fervour, for Bobus's continued ill-
auguries only acted as a stimulus; nor were they silenced till she
begged as a personal favour that he would not torment the boy.
Indeed her presence made life smooth and cheerful again to the young
people; there were no more rubs of temper, and Bobus, whose departure
was very near, showed himself softened. He was very fond of his
mother, and greatly felt the leaving her.
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