The time of Tom’s holidays was rather a holiday also for Beaufort, who, having got a certain amount of amusement out of the notebooks and their record of school-life, was beginning to be bored by himself, and to think, under his breath, what a little prig and ass he had been in his boyish days, and how astounding it was that Carry should take it all in with such undoubting faith. He was a little of a philosopher in his idle way, and Carry began to be a sometimes disconcerting but often amusing problem to him. He laughed softly sometimes when he was by himself to see how seriously she took him, and how much his youthful superiority impressed her. It had not been in his intention when he unearthed the notebooks to increase, as he had certainly done, her admiration, and, consequently, her expectations of himself. He had hoped, if anything, to beguile her a little from the pursuit of results, to make her less in earnest about the great work on which she had set her heart. But his expedient had not succeeded. She was more than ever bent upon the fulfilling of that early promise which was so beautiful and so wonderful in her eyes. Beaufort was half flattered, half vexed by this result. It is hard to resent a woman’s admiration even if it is of something which is no longer yourself. It softened his heart, but it embarrassed him more than ever, as it made her more and more sure. He took advantage of Tom with a little secret chuckle to himself behind backs. Tom amused this philosopher too. He liked to draw him out, to watch the movements of character in him, even to speculate what kind of a man it had been that had produced this child. He must be like his father, Beaufort said to himself, without any sentiment even of animosity towards Carry’s husband. Certainly he had got the better of that man. He had obliterated Torrance, as it were, from the face of the earth; but he had no such feeling as Carry had about Torrance’s life and Torrance’s money. He took it all much more calmly than she could do, not even thinking of the curiousness of the succession which made him owe all his comfort and happiness to Torrance. Tom, however, was the subject of various speculations in his stepfather’s mind. If this was what the little Torrance was modified by Lindores, what must the original have been? And what would this one turn to? an ordinary country gentleman, no better or worse than his neighbours, or what? A vague sense in his mind that there might be future trouble to Carry in the child’s development moved him mildly--for the distance between childhood and manhood seems long looking forward to it, though so short when we look back: and any such danger must be far in the future. It was rather as a droll little problem, which it was amusing to study, that Mr. Beaufort looked at Tom; but for that reason, and to free himself a little from the ever-increasing pressure of his wife’s solicitude in respect to his