"Trace has got his silent crotchets just as much as anybody else," cried Sir Simon, a shade of deeper anger in his tone. "I'll talk to him; I'll talk to the three. Treat Paradyne as you do the rest, Dr. Brabazon; I would ask it of you as a personal favour. _I_ turn the boy away! I've just as much right to do it as he has to turn me out of Pond Place. Deprive the lad of an education; of the means by which he'll have to make his bread? No; a hundred times over, no," concluded Sir Simon, in an explosive tone, the stick descending again. "Very well; he shall stay. And if circumstances force me to put him away later,—that is, if the facts become known to the school, and the boy's life is thereby rendered unhappy, why—but time enough to talk of that," broke off the speaker. "It might happen, however, Sir Simon; and there's no knowing how soon." Sir Simon saw that it might. "Who knows of it?" he asked. "Your two nephews and John Irby. I have strictly charged them, on their honour, not to speak of this: I called them in before afternoon school. Dick does not appear to have heard the name yet: but I shall speak to him. It is unfortunate the name should be so peculiar—Paradyne." Sir Simon nodded. "What an odd thing it is the boy should have come to this particular school," he exclaimed. "Is he one of your boarders?" "No; he is an out-pupil; not in any master's house at all. About five weeks ago," pursued the head master, in explanation, "I received a letter from the country, from a lady signing herself Paradyne—I remember thinking it an uncommon name at the time—asking if there was a vacancy in the college for a well-advanced outdoor pupil, and inquiring the terms. There happened to be a vacancy, and I said so, and sent the terms; in a few days she wrote again, saying her son would enter. She has come up to live here. I asked Paradyne this morning where he was going to live, and he said close by, with his mother." "They never much liked her, I remember," observed Sir Simon, who was casting his thoughts back. "Mrs. Trace used to say she spent too much." "I suppose they lived beyond their means, these Paradynes." "No; it did not appear so; and the mystery never was cleared up where the abstracted sums (enormous sums they were!) had gone, or what they had gone in. Mrs. Trace, my poor sister Mary, was of so very quiet a disposition herself caring nothing for dress or show; and Mrs. Paradyne, I suppose, did care for it. I remember my brother-in-law, Robert Trace, observed to me after the explosion, how glad he was that he and his wife had lived quietly; that no blame on that score could attach to him. The Loftus's were different; they spent all before them; not, however, more than they had a right to spend. I suppose you know the particulars, doctor?" "Not at all. I never heard them."