“Oh, I am not complaining—nothing of the kind. I should not feel myself justified in doing so. It is simply that I am disappointed.” Then placing a hand lightly on her arm, he added: “My great fear is that I shall never succeed in making a gentleman of him.” “That would indeed be a misfortune. He would be the first Clare against whom such an allegation could be brought.” “Knowing, as I did,” resumed Sir Gilbert, “(for, as far as I am aware, his mother hid nothing from me), the defects under which he laboured as regards his education and upbringing, I determined to have them remedied as far as it might be possible to do at this late time of day. Accordingly I arranged with the vicar of St. Michael’s, an old Cambridge man, to do what he could in the way of introducing Lewis to some, at least, of the great writers of antiquity. Of course I knew it was too late to do much unless the boy took kindly to the vicar’s teaching. I also engaged a man to give him riding lessons. Well, I waited till several weeks had gone by without making any inquiry as to the progress he was making. I did not want it to seem as if I were in anyway hurrying the boy. The other day, however, I made it my business to call both on the vicar and on Marsh, the livery-stable keeper. From both I heard the same story, reluctantly told, of incompetence and hopeless failure. ‘He’ll never look anything but a figure of fun on horseback, sir; he’s no more nerve than a mouse,’—was Marsh’s uncompromising verdict; and from the vicar I had no better a report. ‘I am grieved to say that it is simply a waste of time and money to endeavour to impart even a smattering of classical knowledge to Mr. Clare,’ was what he had to say to me.” “That must be excessively disheartening for you,” remarked her ladyship in her most sympathetic tones. “Disheartening indeed, Louisa; still, all that might be overlooked and forgiven him in consideration of his bringing up, but unfortunately he seems to have contracted a number of low tastes, and to be addicted to a class of company which cannot but tend to degrade him still further. Some men’s weaknesses and shortcomings are accidents of their lives and are more or less curable, others seem as if they had been bred in the system and cannot be eradicated. I greatly fear that my grandson’s failings belong to the latter category.” “It grieves me greatly that you should have cause to say this of one who ought to be the comfort and stay of your declining years.”