“I suppose you are eager to get back to cricket?” said Kingcote. “Cricket! Why, you don’t play cricket this time of year!” cried Edgar, with scornful laughter. “Indeed? What is the game, then? Football?” “I should think so.” “You must mend your manners, Edgar,” observed his mother. “Now run out into the garden, and don’t trouble us. His body is getting rather too much for him,” she continued playfully to Kingcote. “He must get back to his fagging. I wouldn’t for the world send a boy of mine to a school where there was no fagging.” “Capital thing, no doubt,” said Kingcote. “He’s a fine boy.” “A little too noisy just at present.” “Oh, it’s a sign of his perfect health. Surely you wouldn’t see him mooning about, or shutting himself up with books?” “Like that poor little fellow of the rector’s,” said Mrs. Stratton. “That child ought to be sent off to school.” “Certainly. They’d soon knock him into shape, take the dreaminess out of him. Robust health before everything. Are your other boys as hearty as this one?” “Oh, every bit! My eldest lad has broken almost every bone in his body, and seems all the better for it.” “Why, that’s magnificent! Their lives will be a joy to them. Constitution, of course, is much; but I’m sure they have to thank you for an admirable bringing-up.” Ada, who sat close by, was regarding Kingcote curiously, just suppressing a smile as she caught a glimpse of Mrs. Stratton’s gratified face. “This is your ideal of education?” she put in gravely. “Assuredly it is,” was Kingcote’s answer. “Surely that education is best which leads to happiness. That boy will never be afflicted with nervous disorders; he will never be melancholy, hypochondriacal, despairing; he will never see the world in any but the rosiest light, never be troubled by abstract speculation, never doubt for a moment about his place and his work. The plan of education which has such a result as that is beneficence itself. Don’t you think so, Miss Warren?” “To be sure I wouldn’t have the minds altogether neglected,” said Mrs. Stratton. “Come and listen, Isabel; Mr. Kingcote is saying the most interesting things.” “Let the mind take care of itself,” continued Kingcote, smiling slightly as he looked at Mrs. Clarendon. “If a boy has a bent for acquiring knowledge, he will manage that later. I wouldn’t encourage it. Make him a sound creature, that’s the first thing. Occupy him with vigorous bodily pursuits; keep his mind from turning inwards; save him from reflection. If every boy in England could be so brought up, they would be a blissful generation.” “How about the girls?” questioned Isabel. “Would you educate them in the same way?” “Precisely, with yet more wholesome effect. Nay, I would go further; they should never open a book till they were one-and-twenty, and their previous training should be that of Amazons.” “That is a merciful provision,” said Ada, meaning possibly more than her hearers understood.