“I am not quite clear about that,” said St. Clair, who knew a little more than Lucy; “but, Jock, you will find a great many more books to read and men to hear about if you come to me and learn. Leave your tall gentleman to overcome the windmills, and come and speak to me. Tell me what you have learned,” he said, holding the child within his arm as he stood up reluctantly by his side. Lucy looked on with pleased approval, yet many excuses. “He has never been to school; he was so delicate papa didn’t like him to be out of his sight,” she said, reddening with much shame and self-reproach as the real state of the case was elucidated. When the cross-examination was over Jock, though not at all ashamed, escaped as quickly as he could from Mr. St. Clair’s detaining arm. He snatched up his book from the rug, and made assurance sure by putting a flight of stairs and the closed door of Mrs. Ford’s room between him and the inquisitor, who laughed and shook his head as the little fellow bolted. “We must begin from the beginning, I fear,” he said. “He has been neglected; but after all, there has not been much time lost.” “I am very sorry he is so ignorant,” said Lucy, deprecatingly; “but, Mr. St. Clair, papa was old, and I was very young.” “Yes; no one could expect you to think of it; you are very young now, Miss Trevor, to have such a charge.” “Oh, that is nothing,” Lucy said; “many people have had a great deal more to do. I have heard of girls that have had to work for their brothers and sisters; indeed, I have been acquainted with some,” she said, thinking of Mary Russell. “But now that we know of it, it is not too late to mend it, Mr. St. Clair.” “Not at all too late;” he was pleased that she should say we. Such a familiarity of association was all he thought that could be desired. “I will undertake to put him in the right way--for the moment.” “Oh,” Lucy said, with disturbed looks, “will it be only for the moment, Mr. St. Clair? I know it is very good fortune, far more than we could have expected, to get you at all--and that you should take such a very little boy.” “I am very happy to be able to be of any use to you,” St. Clair said, with a smile; “and if I am not called away--but you well understand that I can not be at all sure of my time, Miss Trevor. I may be called away.” St. Clair was ready to laugh at the little formula, and this gave him an additional air of seriousness, which looked like feeling. “I wish I had done nothing in my life to be so little ashamed of,” he added, “as teaching a small boy.”