But they had also created a mental pose. They had imbued her with a sense of pious security that armed her against endeavour. What she did easily she did well. What she disliked and found difficult she did not try to do at all, and any unpleasantness resulting from such inactivity she looked upon as a "cross." So long as she was meek and patient under rebuke; so long as she turned the other cheek to the smiter and bore no malice, she felt that she had done all that could be expected of her. For instance, in the matter of the box, it seemed absolutely vital to her that she should read her Bible and meditate in Bruey’s fashion no matter how the constant disturbance of the said box annoyed her aunt. As she wiped plates in a smeary and perfunctory fashion, she was rejoicing in the existence of Montagu and Edmund, because Bruey had a cousin Percy whom she influenced for good. There was a Percy, too, in "Home Influence," and like all the Percies in that class of fiction, these two were dashing, full of generous impulses, but easily led astray. Bruey’s Percy even read yellow-backed novels in bed at night, and Jane wondered whether Montagu was given to similar nocturnal orgies. She had no more idea of what a yellow-back was than she had of a Roman Catholic, but she was sure that both were equally pernicious. Edmund fitted more easily into the Percy part, he was so merry and good-looking; but fond as she was of the centre of the stage, Jane-Anne could not yet quite see herself enlightening Edmund in the approved Bruey fashion. He was so unexpected, he would be certain to say the wrong thing. At this moment Mrs. Dew came back from the dining-room. "You’re to go and see the master in his study," she said; "it’s a quarter to nine now, and the minute the clock strikes you’re to come." Jane-Anne flew to the sink to wash her hands and hastened upstairs, buttoning her sleeves as she went. "Well, have you found the poem?" asked Mr. Wycherly. "No, sir. I’ve read every one you marked, but it isn’t one of them." "Curious," Mr. Wycherly said thoughtfully; "we must try again. Sit down, my child, and think if you can remember in what sort of metre it was written, that would be a help." But Jane-Anne knew nothing about metre, so the question of the poem lapsed for the time being. The precious moments were fleeting, and Bruey being still in the ascendant, she asked _apropos_ of nothing: "Please, sir, do you think Master Montagu and Edmund are little workers?" "Edmund certainly isn’t," Mr. Wycherly replied decidedly; "he’s an idle young dog"—here he chuckled—"but all the same he can do whatever he sets himself to do. Montagu, on the contrary, is naturally industrious. He loves knowledge for its own sake. Why do you ask?" and Mr. Wycherly looked inquiringly at Jane-Anne. She was mystified. That anybody should call anybody else "an idle young dog" in that tone of affectionate amusement was in itself most puzzling.