“Perhaps you will think I don’t know very much; but I shall teach you your lessons,” said Mary, with tremulous satisfaction, yet a little pedagogic assertion of her own superiority. Jock looked at her with attention, studying this new specimen of the human race. “You must not think he is naughty,” said Lucy, interposing eagerly. “He is a very good boy. Though he is so little, he knows a great deal. And he always understands. You may think he is a trouble with his stories, and the fairy books he has read. But he is no trouble,” his sister cried, “he is the greatest comfort. I don’t know what I should have done without Jock; and I am sure you will like him too. We are going to get him his things this afternoon, and to-morrow I am to bring him,” Lucy added, in her usual tranquil tones. “Then that is all right,” said Mary. She thought it was all her doing--that the question had been a doubtful one, and that it was the decided step she had taken which had secured this important little scholar. He was to pay better than any of the rest, and he was, it might be hoped, the first of a better connection. Mary got up to go home with a satisfaction in her supposed success, which was almost triumph. She did not envy Lucy, though she was an heiress. She saw a long perspective of new boys filing before her, and a handsome house and big playgrounds, and an orderly prosperous establishment. These were the things that were worth wishing for, Mary Russell thought. As for Bertie and his book, she shrugged her youthful shoulders at them. But she believed in herself, and in the little boys to come. “We shall have a struggle,” she repeated, with a smile, “as everybody has; but we shall get on.” She did not envy Lucy; but Lucy, perhaps, feeling the tables turned, was not so magnanimous. She was half vexed that the success of the Russells was so certain, and that here was no case for her to interfere. Alas, there was nothing for her to do but to wring her hands and stand helpless upon her mountain of money, while all those poor people whom Mary knew struggled unaided, yet “got on” at last, without any help of hers. CHAPTER XXII. HOW THE RUSSELLS GOT ON.