Mrs. Carroll had wanted to send me to a school in England, but my father would not permit this. He had an idea, and nothing would ever shake it, that English public schools were dens of iniquity. This he had gathered from some article that had appeared in a review, and from the story “Eric.” I suppose he thought I should fall a particularly easy victim to the temptations I might be submitted to; take, like the boys in “Eric,” to drink, “little by little,” or even quite rapidly; come home disgraced; at any rate he would not run the risk, when, by sending me to the McAllisters, he could provide me with the “influence of a religious home.” For Uncle George was religious, and so was Aunt Margaret; and so, I supposed, were the children――George, at least, I had been told, was a communicant――and it was the thought of all this that now lay heavy on my soul. I was not to go up to town till the afternoon, and as we sat down to our early dinner I could not, though I knew it was absolutely useless, refrain from again taking up the tabooed subject. I suggested how much better it would be for me to go into lodgings of my own choosing. If they were more expensive, Mrs. Carroll would not mind. “Whether she would mind or not,” my father answered, “I should have thought you would not have wanted to put her to any unnecessary expense.” “But she wouldn’t mind doing it,” I repeated, obstinately. “She told you she wanted to.” “You know very well that is not the question,” my father said, more coldly. “I have explained why I think it better that you should be with those who will look after you. You are not old enough to be by yourself.” “I don’t like the McAllisters,” I answered, sullenly. My father looked annoyed. “Perhaps you think they are not good enough for you?” “They certainly aren’t,” I replied. It was a pity that our last meal together should have been somewhat embittered by these remarks, but it was not altogether my fault. For my father had been too extreme in his measures. Under the impression that what I needed was to get into surroundings which would more or less counteract the supposed relaxing influence of Mrs. Carroll’s indulgence, he had arranged that I was not even to come home for weekends, but was to submit myself during the entire term to the bracing effect of the McAllister family.