At Eton, whither he was sent so soon as he arrived at the proper age, he very shortly obtained the same character. Pursuing the strict path of duty,--industrious, punctual, and regular, with very fair abilities, and scrupulously making the most of them,--he never lost an opportunity and never made a friend. All that was good of him his masters always said; but they stopped there; they never said anything that was kind. In school they could not help respecting him; out of school they would as soon have thought of making Ronald Kilsyth their companion as of taking _Hind's Algebra_ for pleasant reading. And it was the same with his schoolfellows. They talked of his steadiness and of his hard-working with pride, as reflecting on themselves and the whole school. They speculated as to what he would do in the future, and how he would show that the stories that had been told about Eton were all lies, don't you know? and how Kilsyth would go up to Cambridge, and show them what the best public school--the only school for English gentlemen, you know--could do; and _Floreat Etona_, and all that kind of thing, old fellow. But Ronald Kilsyth, during the whole of his Eton pupilage, never had a chum--never knew what it was to share a confidence, add to a pleasure, or lighten a grief. Did he feel this? Perhaps more acutely than could have been imagined; but being, as he was, proud, shy, sensitive, and above all queer, he took care that no one knew what his feelings were, or whether he had any at all on the subject. Queer! that was the word by which they called him at Eton, and which, after all, expressed his disposition better than any other. Strong-minded, clear-headed, generous, and brave, with an outer coating of pride, shyness, reserve, and a mixture of all which passed current for _hauteur_. With a strong contempt for nearly everything in which his contemporaries found pleasure,--save in the excess of exercise, as that he thoroughly understood and appreciated,--and with a wearying desire to find pleasure for himself; with an impulse to exertion and work, accountable to himself only on the score of duty, but having no definite end or aim; with a restless longing to make his escape from the thraldom of conventionality, and rush off and do something somewhere far away from the haunts of men. With all the morbidness of the hero of _Locksley Hall_, without the excuse of having been jilted, and without any of the experience of that sweetly modulated cynic, Ronald Kilsyth, obeying his father's wish, and thereby again following the paths of duty, was gazetted to the Life-Guards--the exact position for a young gentleman in his condition.