At this point their eldest son came in quietly and sat down half-way between his father and mother. Colonel Follitt was a well-set-up, tough-looking man, who looked younger than his age and dressed just a little younger than he looked. There were a few lines in his face, his well-trimmed moustache was only just beginning to turn grey, and he had the eyes of a boy. His wife was neither fair nor dark, and quite as well-preserved as he, besides having the advantage of being ten years younger. But the eldest son of this good-looking couple seemed prematurely old. He was tall, thin, and dark, and had the general air and cut of a student. He could ride, because all the Follitts rode, and he shot as well as the average man who is asked to fill a place for a couple of days with an average shooting-party; but he much preferred Sanskrit to horses, and the Upanishads to a day on the moors. From sheer love of study he had passed for the Indian Civil Service after taking his degree; but instead of taking an appointment he had plunged into the dark sea of Sanskrit literature, and was apparently as much at home in that element as a young salmon in his native stream. His father mildly said that the only thing that might have made him seem human would have been a little of the family susceptibility to feminine charm. But though he was heir to a good estate, he had not yet shown the least inclination to marry, and pretty governesses came and went unnoticed by him. Like most students, he was very fond of his home, but he made frequent journeys to London at all times of the year for the purpose of making researches in the British Museum. Even the most careful mother could feel little or no anxiety about such a son, and Lady Jane, for reasons of her own, sometimes wished that his brothers would take up their quarters in the neighbourhood of the British Museum for six months at a time. She gave him his tea now, just as he liked it, and a long silence followed. He sat quite still, looking into his cup with the air of pleasant but melancholy satisfaction peculiar to students who have just left their books. He looked up at last, towards his mother, with a far-away expression. “By-the-bye,” he asked, “when is the new governess coming?” A vague smile just moved Colonel Follitt’s neat moustache, but Lady Jane’s fine brow darkened. “I am considering the question,” she answered, as a judge sometimes replies to a barrister’s clever insinuation, saying that the Court will “bear the point in mind.” Noting her manner, and well understanding what it meant, Lionel thought it necessary to make some explanation. “I was thinking of those girls,” he said with profound gravity. “A little holiday will do them good,” said Lady Jane. “So far as that goes,” answered Lionel thoughtfully, “a woman’s education is complete when she has forgotten her arithmetic and has learned to play the piano well enough to drive people out of the house.”