As was natural, Gilbert took the lead, and was always the person most considered, but Mark had an innate love of learning, which made him accept with eagerness whatever was offered to him. From the day when a six years’ child he spelt out the mysteries of “haec musa” to that when he gave proof of accomplished scholarship by carrying off the first honours of his school, it never occurred to Mark to clip his studies by a careful selection of what would carry him through an examination, too much engrossed by learning to count personal profit or want of profit in the matter; while Gilbert from his tenderest years showed a precocious esteem for “what would pay” and a profound unwillingness to learn anything for its own sake; so that when he was ten years old, it being found that Mark was in all respects in advance of his cousin, Lady Elgitha decreed that it was waste of time for Mark to study at home any longer, and that Gilbert had better be sent to one of those feeders of Eton where the subjects of study are strictly narrowed to suit the demands of that seat of learning; and in due course Gilbert Manners Echlin, having passed through the congenial mill of the Rev. Edward Thornborough, at Staines, took a good place on his entrance, and was fairly launched into the sea of public school life. His grandfather and his uncle being earls, and his father a parson, he was not particularly badgered on his first coming; he was sufficiently aristocratic in countenance and bearing to pass muster with the boys, and sufficiently ready with his lessons to escape the censure of masters. Mark Fenner, meanwhile, diligently attended the Grammar School at Sunbridge, walking to and fro summer and winter, wet and dry, and, with his bright, cheery face and steady ways, won the love of masters and of boys, and worked his way with quiet perseverance to the top of the school. It never occurred to him to envy Gilbert his fine clothes or the guineas he jingled in his pockets when he came to the cottage to say good-bye; and he submitted with an easy grace to the airs of patronage which his cousin assumed. It was natural, he thought, that his Aunt Elgitha’s son should go to Eton, and it was equally natural and right that he himself should work out his lessons without other aid than that of dictionary and grammar by the light of his mother’s lamp in the cottage parlour, occasionally refreshing himself by a half-unconscious glance at the enlarged photograph over the mantelpiece, which was the only portrait they had of their father, and which, dull and poor as it was in comparison with the bright presence which had passed away, was yet an outward visible sign of it very dear to the three who called the cottage home.