"Here they are! here come my father and Bruce!" cried Vibert, rising from his easy-chair as he caught sight of two figures at the gate. Emmie had started up, and was out of the room to receive the travellers, before Vibert had finished the sentence. CHAPTER II. COMING TO A DECISION. "Yes, I am satisfied in regard to educational advantages for my sons," said Mr. Trevor, in reply to a question asked by the captain, when, a few minutes afterwards, the family were gathered together in the drawing-room. "The tutor, Mr. Blair, appears to be in every way qualified to do full justice to his pupils; I had a very satisfactory interview with him at S----." "But Myst Court itself, what do you think of the place?" inquired Vibert. "The house was originally handsome, but it is now utterly out of repair," replied Mr. Trevor. "I don't suppose that painter or glazier has entered the door for these last fifty years," observed Bruce. "The grounds are extensive," continued Mr. Trevor; "but the trees are choking each other for lack of thinning; and the brushwood, through neglect, has thickened into a jungle." "A good cover for rabbits and hares," observed Vibert, who had an eye to sport. "I never before saw such wretched cottages," said Bruce; "and there are sixty-one of them on the estate, besides two farms. The hovels are dotted in groups of threes and fours in every corner where one would not expect to find them. Some lean forward, as if bending under the weight of their roofs; some to one side, as if trying to get away from their neighbours; some cottages look as if they were tired of standing at all. I cannot imagine how the men and women, and swarms of bare-footed children, manage to live in such dirty dens." "Is there no one to look after the people?" asked Captain Arrows. "There is no church or school-house nearer than S----," replied Mr. Trevor. "The people either work for the neighbouring farmers, or in a dyeing factory which stands about a mile from Myst Court. Wages are low in that part of the country; but that is not sufficient to account for the misery which we saw there. Ignorance prevails--ignorance more dense than I could have believed to have been found in any part of our favoured land. I doubt whether of the peasants one in four is able even to read. As a matter of course, drunkenness and every other vice spread as weeds over a field so neglected." "It is there that the labourer is called to lay his hand to the plough," observed Captain Arrows. Vibert gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders; Bruce as slight an inclination of his head. A very faint sigh escaped from the lips of Emmie.