“Our standard is within the reach of most,” he said; “there are those who would tell you it’s the scorn of the scholastic world. We don’t go in for making scholars. We go in for making men. Give us the raw material of a man, and we won’t reject it because it doesn’t know the Greek alphabet—no, not even if it was fifteen on its last birthday! That’s our system, and I support it through thick and thin; but it lays us open to worse types than escaped stable-boys.” “This boy doesn’t look fifteen.” “Nor is he—quite—much less the type I had in mind. He has a head on his shoulders, and something in it too. It appears that the vicar where he came from took an interest in the lad, and got him on as far as Cæsar and Euclid for pure love.” “That speaks well for the lad,” put in Miss Heriot, impartially. “I must say that it appealed to me. Then he’s had a tutor for the last six months; and neither tutor nor vicar has a serious word to say against his character. The tutor, moreover, is a friend of Arthur Drysdale’s, who was captain of this house when I took it over, and the best I ever had. That’s what brought them to me. The boy should take quite a good place. I should be very glad to have him in my own form, to see what they’ve taught him between them. I confess I’m interested in him; his mother was a lady; but you may almost say he never saw her in his life. Yet it’s the mother who counts in the being of a boy. Has the gentle blood been hopelessly poisoned by the stink of the stables, or is it going to triumph and run clean and sweet? It’s a big question, Milly, and it’s not the only one involved.” Heriot had propounded it with waving pipe that required another match when he was done; through the mountain tan upon his face, and in the eager eyes behind the glasses, shone the zeal of the expert to whom boys are dearer than men or women. The man is rare; rarer still the woman who can even understand him; but here in this little room of books and antique lumber, you had the pair. “I’m glad you told me,” said Miss Heriot, at length. “I fear I should have been prejudiced if you had not.” “My one excuse for telling you,” was the grave rejoinder. “No one else shall ever know through me; not even Mr. Thrale, unless some special reason should arise. The boy shall have every chance. He doesn’t even know I know myself, and I don’t want him ever to suspect. It’s quite a problem, for I must keep an eye on him more than on most; yet I daren’t be down on him, and I daren’t stand up for him; he must sink or swim for himself.” “I’m afraid he’ll have a bad time,” said Miss Heriot, picking a print from the water and blotting it as before. Her brother had seated himself at another bureau to write his letters. “I don’t mind betting Carpenter has a worse,” he rejoined without looking up. “But he’s so enthusiastic about everything?”