“Mr. Frere is a man of whom I have a very high opinion, both on account of his unusual intellectual attainments, and his manly, upright character. Have you been long acquainted with him, sir, may I ask?” “He was my guide and protector when I first went to Westminster,” replied Lewis, “and we have been close friends ever since.” “A most fortunate circumstance,” remarked the General sententiously. “The mind of youth is easily impressible for good or evil, and unless such establishments are greatly altered for the better since my time, Satan has no lack of emissaries at a public school. Will you allow me a few minutes’ private conversation with you, Mr. Arundel? The library is in this direction.” So saying, General Grant opened the door with frigid courtesy, and signing to Lewis to precede him, followed with a stateliness of demeanour admirable to behold. Scarcely had they left the room, when Annie, clapping her hands joyfully, exclaimed, “What a creature! why, he’s as stiff and dignified as papa himself. Now then, Charley, tell me who he is, and all about him: we shall have Aunt Martha or somebody coming, and then I shall never know, and be obliged to die of curiosity. You are asleep, I believe.” “There you go--that’s always the way with women,” returned Leicester, speaking very slowly and with an exaggeration of his usual mode of pronunciation, which was something between a lisp and a drawl; “asking half-a-dozen questions in a breath, and resolved to get up a suicidal amount of curiosity if they are not as speedily answered. Why, my dear child, I would not speak as quickly as you do for any amount of money--at least any amount of money I should be at all likely to get for doing so.” “Now, Charley, don’t be tiresome. Who is the man?” rejoined Annie, half pettishly. Then, seeing that her imperious manner only induced her cousin still further to tease her, she added, in an imploring tone, which no heart of any material softer than granite could resist, “You will tell me--won’t you? I want to know so much, and I have had nothing to amuse me all day.” “There, do you hear that?” soliloquised Leicester, appealing to society in general. “Trust a woman to get her own way. If she can’t scold you into giving it to her, she’ll coax you. Well, you little torment, I suppose you must know all about it. The man, as you please to call him, is seeking the honourable post of bear-leader to the cub your father has the felicity of being guardian unto.” “What, a tutor for poor Walter!” rejoined Annie meditatively. “But surely he’s a gentleman, is he not?” “Very particularly and decidedly so, as far as I am a judge,” returned Leicester, hooking a footstool towards him with his cane, and depositing his feet thereupon. “At least I dined and spent last evening in his company, and never wish to meet a better fellow.” “But,” continued Annie, pursuing her train of reasoning, “if he is a gentleman, why does he want to go out as a tutor?”