For one thing, Mrs. John Parke intimated to all her friends with great regret that the little lord was exceedingly delicate, which was a thing not to be wondered at considering the age of his parents, the unfortunate tendency to nervous and mental disease in his mother’s family, and the extremely injudicious way in which he had been brought up until the time when he came under her care. He was so delicate that when Mar reached the age at which other boys go to school, his aunt did not feel that she could take the responsibility of permitting him to go. She said it was his uncle who was afraid to take this step, but most people knew that Mrs. John Parke had the reigning will in the house. The situation altogether was one which the outer world did not very well understand. Lady Frogmore lived at the Dower-house, which was quite on the other side of the county, and very difficult to get at from the Park, being out of the way of railways, and requiring a very long and roundabout journey by various junctions. She was well enough to see her friends, to take a little mild share in what was going on, but her son was never with her. It was vaguely rumored that she had taken an aversion to him during the time of the insanity, from which, as a matter of fact, most people were doubtful if she had ever recovered, while many continued to regard her with a little alarm, her sister-in-law being the chief of these. Mrs. John Parke never hesitated to express this feeling with lamentations over her own weakness. “Poor Mary,” she said, “is quite well now: I know she is quite well--just as clear in her head as any of us, except that unfortunate delusion about the boy. I know it is very bad of me, but one can’t help one’s nature; and I cannot get over it. She always frightens me. I keep thinking perhaps something may be said that will set her off--or something happen. I know I am very wrong, but I have such a horror of mad people. Oh yes, I know she is quite well _now_, but when that is in your nature how can one ever be sure?” Most people sympathized with Mrs. John, who betrayed to her intimates with bated breath the state of affairs between Mary and her child. “Greenpark was in many ways more convenient to us,” she said, “but what could we do? We could not abandon the poor child. John was his natural guardian, and of course we all felt that wholesome quiet family life, when he would simply be one of many, was the best thing for him--the only thing to neutralize all those other dreadful influences. He is always called by his Christian name, not Frogmore, as would naturally be the case for the same reason. It is so much better, with such an excitable feeble child, not to surround him with any sort of special distinction--time enough for that when he is a man.” “If he ever lives to be a man,” Mrs. Parke’s confidants would say, shaking their heads.