And so this was the last good deed which he did for me when our ways in life parted for the first time, and I went up to London to read for the Bar, while he remained at Oxford. His plans were not fixed beyond the summer. He had promised to take two or three Oriel men to Scotland on a reading party, and accordingly went with them to Oban in July; and, while there, accepted an offer, which came to him I scarcely know how, to take charge of the sons of the late Mr. Beaumont at Harrow, as their private tutor. I must own I was much annoyed at the time when I heard of this resolution. I could see no reason for it, and many against it. Here was he, probably the most popular man of his day at Oxford, almost sure of a fellowship if he chose to stay up and read for it, one of the best oars and cricketers in England, a fine sportsman, and enjoying all these things thoroughly, and with the command of as much as he chose to take of them, deliberately shelving himself as the tutor of three young boys. I am afraid there was also a grain of snobbishness at the bottom of my dislike to the arrangement. Private tutors were looked upon then by young men—I hope it is so no longer—as a sort of upper servants; and I was weak enough, notwithstanding my newly acquired liberalism, to regard this move of George’s as a sort of loss of caste. He was my eldest brother, and I was very fond and proud of him. I was sure he would distinguish himself in any profession he chose to follow, while there was no absolute need of his following any; and it provoked me to think of his making what I thought a false move, and throwing away some of the best years of his life. However, I knew it was useless to remonstrate, as he had made up his mind, and so held my tongue, and came to see that he was quite right. It was not till nearly three years later, when his engagement was over and he had entered at Doctors’ Commons, that I came to understand and appreciate his motives. The first of these you may gather from the following extract from a letter of your grandfather’s, dated February 23rd, 1849:—“George, it seems, is unusually lively at the idea of going tooth and nail to work with men instead of boys; and, now that he has for three years gratified his whim of keeping himself wholly off my hands, consents to be assisted like his brothers.” This “whim” of proving to his own satisfaction that he was worth his keep, and could make his own living, is not a very usual one nowadays, when most young Englishmen seem to assume that they have a natural right to maintenance at the expense of some one. He had then six other brothers, on whom the example was not altogether thrown away, though none of us were ever able quite to come up to it. It had the effect, however, of making us thoughtful in the matter of expenditure; and, consequently, of the four who went to the universities, and two who entered the army, not one got into any money difficulties.