Their governess had gone home for the holidays, but Ger was so backward that his father insisted that he must do a short lesson (with Mrs Ffolliot) every morning. Ger could not read. It was extraordinary how difficult he found it, and how dull it appeared to him, this art that seemed to come by nature to other people; which, once mastered, appeared capable of giving so much pleasure. It puzzled Ger extremely. Mrs Ffolliot had, herself, instructed all her sons in the rudiments of the Latin Grammar, and very well and thoroughly she did it, but so pleasantly, that in their minds the declensions and the conjugations were ever vaguely associated with the scent of violets. The reason for this being, that the instructed one invariably squeezed as close as possible to his teacher, and as there were violets at Redmarley nearly all the year round, Mrs Ffolliot always wore a bunch tucked into her waistband. It was characteristic of the trust the squire had in his wife's training that he had not the slightest objection to the children using the library when he, himself, was not there to be disturbed, being quite certain that as they had promised her not to touch his writing table, the promise would be faithfully kept. Besides, like all true book-lovers, he was generous in the matter of his books, and provided the children treated them with due care and respect, had no objection to their taking them out of the shelves and reading them. For a long time there was no sound in the room but an occasional whispered, "_fui, fuisti, fuit_." Presently Grantly and Mary came in to discuss a fancy-dress dance to which they were bidden that evening at a neighbour's; then, in rushed Reggie in coat and hat with a newly arrived parcel in his hand. Ger had seen the railway van come up the drive, but as he had promised his mother not to move until he had mastered his verb, he did not make his presence known to anyone. Reggie went over to Mr Ffolliot's desk, and seeing a shilling lying on the table seized it and fled from the room. Three minutes later Ger saw him bowling down the drive in the dog-cart, then Mr Ffolliot returned, and Ger, feeling tolerably certain of the "perfect and pluperfect and future perfect," went slowly upstairs to his mother to repeat it. All went on peacefully and quietly in the schoolroom for the next half hour, when suddenly Grantly and Mary whirled into the room in a state of such excited indignation as took their mother quite five minutes to discover what all the fuss was about. When at last they had been induced to tell their story separately, and not in a chorus almost oratorio-like in its confusion, Mrs Ffolliot discovered to her dismay that they were accused of meddling with a shilling which their father had placed on the book-club collecting card, ready for the collector when she should call.