boy and a dog can. But more than the dog--even more than his cherished romances--Lewis’s most beloved possession were certain books inscribed “Thomas Pryor, M. A.,” and a miniature of his father--a lanky person, as unlike Lewis’s dark, clear-cut little face as could be imagined--and a quaint picture in black and white of his mother. But he thought of her so often and so much that he had in his mind’s eye a perfect portrait of her. Bulstrode was always ready enough to talk to the boy about his father and mother, but Lewis soon found that Bulstrode’s talk amounted to nothing at all, as he had seen but little of either Mr. or Mrs. Pryor. As for Skelton, Lewis could not make him out. He was always kind, always indulgent, and Lewis was quite sharp enough to see that, however Bulstrode might be his guardian, Skelton had the real authority over both Bulstrode and himself. But there was a perfect formality between them. The boy remembered, though, once when he was ill, that Skelton scarcely left him day or night. He always dined with Skelton, and at dinner had one very small glass of wine, after which he might have been expected to leave the table. Occasionally after dinner Skelton would thaw, and would talk to the boy in a way that quite charmed him, telling him of Skelton’s own boyhood and his travels. When they came to Virginia, Lewis found the new country more like his faintly remembered English home than he could express, and was a thousand times happier than he had been in the splendid lodgings where so much of his boyhood had been passed. He liked much better riding over the country on his pony than taking a tiresome canter in a public park; Service and himself had much jollier times in the woods and fields than in prim city gardens. And then the negroes were so amusing, and called him “Little Marse” so obsequiously, and he had a boat to sail on the river. This last gave him the most acute and intense pleasure. Skelton, for the first time in his life, taught him something in teaching him to sail the boat. “Now, Lewis,” Skelton said, the first morning the boat was put into the water, “I foresee that you will live in this boat, and as you will no doubt be upset dozens of times, and be caught in squalls and all sorts of accidents, the only thing to do is to teach you to depend upon yourself. The river is not more than fifteen feet deep anywhere, except in the channel, and with ordinary intelligence and care nothing worse ought to happen to you than a good wetting once in a while. The boat is staunch. I myself watched Jim, the wheelwright, making it, and gave him the dimensions”--for the boat had been built at Deerchase--“and the sail is quite large enough for it”--Lewis did not agree with this last, as his ambition was to have the smallest boat and the biggest sail on the river--“and if you are drowned it will be your own fault.”